GOP’s Supreme Court push may box in Cory Gardner

Six years ago, Colorado Democrats failed to convince enough voters to reject Cory Gardner’s bid for the U.S. Senate. Their warnings that the Republican could, someday, be the confirming vote for a Supreme Court justice who could overturn Roe v. Wade proved ineffective. Now Gardner, 46, is poised to be one of the votes that places President Donald Trump’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court just before the election. And Democrats think they have the votes to punish him for it. Gardner has long been considered both one of the nimblest Republican politicians and also one of the most vulnerable. His 2014 run was praised as the best Senate campaign that year for defusing Democratic attacks about his role in a “war on women” and staying on message. But he’s also a Republican in a state that has shifted sharply to Democrats since Trump was elected — the president lost the state by 5% in 2016 and then Democrats won the governorship by 11% and every other statewide race in 2018. Gardner has struggled to escape the president’s long shadow. “Luck and timing are everything in politics, and Cory’s on the wrong end of all these elements,” said Mike Stratton, a Democratic strategist who advised the man Gardner ousted in 2014, Sen. Mark Udall. Gardner is now up against John Hickenlooper, a popular former two-term governor of Colorado and Denver mayor. Gardner’s reelection hinges on convincing the state’s crucial slice of independent voters he’s a nonpartisan problem-solver who will look out for the state. On the campaign trail, he’s emphasized his work on state-centric, uncontroversial issues — moving the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to western Colorado, co-writing a bill to fund maintenance at national parks and creating a national suicide prevention number. “I vote 100% of the time for the people of Colorado,” Gardner said during a debate Friday evening.. But Gardner’s also been a reliable vote for his party under Trump. The president praised Gardner for being on his side “100% of the time” at a rally in February, and voters got another reminder of that when Gardner said he supports Barrett’s nomination. Republicans acknowledge that may be enough to prevent him from escaping Trump’s downward pull. “I’m saying a prayer he doesn’t get swept out by our president,” said Linda Heintz, 71, a registered Republican in suburban Denver who plans to vote early for Gardner. Heintz still hasn’t decided whether she can vote for Trump but figured Gardner was a no-brainer. “He’s done nothing to not deserve reelection,” she said, acknowledging she doesn’t think many others in the state agree with her view. Joan Kresek doesn’t. The 65-year-old graphic design professor is an independent-turned-Democrat who exemplifies Colorado’s transformation from a swing state into an increasingly blue bastion. “Cory Gardner is attached to Trump, whom I’m 100% against,” Kresek said, saying Gardner’s support for a rapid replacement to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “is what he stands for.” GOP pollster David Flaherty noted that the Barrett nomination is especially difficult for Gardner. The independents he needs to win aren’t just non-partisan, they’re anti-partisanship, disliking even “the impression of partisan decision-making,” he said. Republicans’ push to confirm Barrett before the election, when they thwarted Democrats’ attempt at a less-rushed confirmation four years ago, is a tough sell.