One of two Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, Joe O’Dea, told a small group of Grand Junction residents Friday that he’s not pleased with the direction the nation is going.
High inflation. High gas prices. Increasing crime rates.
That’s why the former construction company owner entered the race, he said.
“My wife and I have been blessed with the American dream here in Colorado,” O’Dea said at a brief meet-and-greet event at Boston’s Restaurant & Sports Bar on Patterson Road.
“I’m really worried about the direction this country is in,” he added. “I don’t want my kids and my grandkids to not have that same dream.”
Currently, O’Dea is in a heated battle with state Rep. Ron Hanks, a Penrose Republican who believes the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
This week, O’Dea’s campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over mailers sent out by unknown people in an attempt to sway the election toward Hanks. One of the mailers claims that the Colorado Republican Party has endorsed Hanks, something officials in both parties don’t do in primary races.
“Let me be clear, the Colorado GOP has not and does not endorse in primary races,” Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown said in a statement. “These verifiably false and malicious mailers are criminal and we will be taking action.”
The campaign also has asked the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and some district attorneys to look into the matter.
“Democrats right now have dumped over $5 million that we can account for to bolster my opponent because they want to face him this November,” he told the crowd. “They don’t want to face me.”
O’Dea said one of his main issues if he gets into the U.S. Senate would be to reduce the size, and cost of the federal bureaucracy, and the regulations it imposes.
The winner of the June 28 primary will go on to face U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat.
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