A month after first confirming his interest publicly, state Rep. Jon Keyser has now joined Colorado's Senate race. Keyser, an Iraq and Afghanistan vet, is only 34 years old and has served in the legislature for scarcely a year, but national Republicans seem to have settled on him as their preferred candidate, after previous recruits spurned them.
Keyser says he's resigning from the his House seat (and will also quit his job as an attorney), but he faces a daunting GOP primary. Among the candidates he'll have to get past are wealthy businessman Robert Blaha, who self-funded an unsuccessful intra-party challenge to Rep. Doug Lamborn in 2012, and state Sen. Tim Neville, an ultra-conservative lawmaker who is determined to make abortion the top issue in the race. How well can the insider-adjacent Keyser fare against outsiders like these, given the intense anger that permeates the Republican base these days?
And even if Keyser can pull off the nomination, beating Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet will be a tall order. Bennet, the former head of the DSCC, is well-connected and a strong fundraiser. He also won an incredibly tough campaign in 2010, when he miraculously survived the GOP wave as a recent appointee to the Senate. If Republicans couldn't beat Bennet then, they're going to have a hell of a time now, especially if another bitter primary yields a less-than-ideal nominee once again.