CO-Sen: Construction company owner Joe O'Dea said Thursday that he planned to reach the June Republican primary ballot by collecting signatures, while one of his intra-party rivals, real estate developer Gino Campana, previously said he’d go through the party’s convention process instead. This is an important decision in Colorado, and as we’ll discuss, both options have big potential drawbacks.
Candidates from each party can try to reach the primary in one of two ways: either by winning the support of at least 30% of the delegates at their party’s biennial convention (also known locally as an “assembly”) or by collecting enough signatures to appear on the June ballot, regardless of what happens at the convention. Typically, the conventions take place about two to three months before the primary, and the GOP gathering is set for April 9. Campaigns can opt to try both methods, but doing so still doesn’t offer a guarantee: If a candidate takes less than 10% of the vote at the convention, then their campaign is over no matter how many signatures they turn in.
Candidates who want to successfully petition their way onto the ballot for U.S. Senate or governor must collect 1,500 valid signatures in each of Colorado's eight congressional districts from registered members of their political party. (Contenders for other statewide office, such as attorney general, need 1,000 per district, while there are different requirements for other posts.) That's a time-consuming undertaking that can become quite expensive, with consultants telling Colorado Politics that Senate candidates could spend close to $500,000 to make the ballot.
To make things even more complicated, voters can only sign one petition for each race. If a voter signs petitions for multiple contenders, it only counts in favor of the first candidate to turn in their signatures, so there’s a rush for everyone to submit—which introduces even more problems. Unsurprisingly, candidates often sue―sometimes even successfully―if election authorities rule that they failed to turn in the requisite number of petitions.
The convention route is considerably cheaper and, because the contender with the most delegate support gets the top spot on the primary ballot, it offers another enticing advantage to candidates. However, party assemblies can be very unpredictable events, as the GOP found out in the 2016 race. That year, an underfunded El Paso County commissioner named Darryl Glenn wowed the delegates with a speech and secured so much support that no one else competing at the assembly advanced; Glenn ended up winning the nomination before losing the general election to Sen. Michael Bennet, the Democrat that both O'Dea and Campana are hoping to unseat.