Polis beats rivals in tough 2nd CD race

By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 12, 2008 at 9:02 p.m.
Updated August 12, 2008 at 11:02 p.m.

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Preston Gannaway © The Rocky

Second congressional district candidate Jared Polis celebrates in Broomfield.

Internet businessman Jared Polis beat two opponents in the 2nd Congressional District Democratic primary after pouring a record amount of his own money into a bitter and hard fought race.

If Polis, 33, wins in November he would become one of the richest members of Congress. And he would be among only a handful of openly gay members and the first from Colorado.

Polis, himself, referenced the issue in his victory speech shortly after his most formidable primary rival, former state senator Joan Fitz-Gerald, called him at about 10:20 p.m. to concede.

Polis took the stage and said he was about to make history and then introduced his partner. Citing his sexual orientation, he said, "I always worried that that would get in the way (of) giving back and contributing to our society."

Polis threw more than $5 million of his own money into the campaign — the most expensive congressional primary in state history — to beat Fitz-Gerald, 60, a rival with a high-profile political history and the backing of unions and many Democratic party loyalists.

Polis also beat out third-place finisher and fellow Boulder resident Will Shafroth, 51, a conservationist who built late momentum in the race with endorsements from Denver's two major newspapers.

"Tonight is just a beginning," Polis told an screaming crowd. "There are other important races to be won," he added, referring to Presidential contender Barack Obama and Mark Udall's Senate race.

In winning, Polis breaks a pattern in Colorado that has seen other candidates who put large sums of their own money into a race repeatedly falter. Major examples include Pete Coors ($1.3 million) running for Senate in 2004 and Bruce Benson ($3.8 million) running for governor in 1994.

The only person to break the jinx previously: Polis, who spent $1 million in his election to win a seat on the state Board of Education in 2000.

"It's one more validation for money rules the day, and more is always better," said Democratic political consultant Steve Welchert, who had tagged Fitz-Gerald as the favorite because of her strong connections within the party infrastructure.

Polis' race isn't finished; he must still beat Republican challenger Scott Starin, 47, of Lafayette, in November. But in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 32,000 voters, Polis' road isn't expected to be hard.

"There's this little book he needs to read — it's called Don Quixote," Welchert said, dismissing the Republican's chances in the 2nd.

Still, Starin promised a spirited campaign, saying he would focus on the district's large population of unaffiliated voters, which at 172,000 outnumber Democrats (149,000) and Republicans (117,000).

Polis and Starin will be vying to fill the seat of Rep. Mark Udall, a Democrat from Eldorado Springs. Udall gave up his U.S. House seat after a decade to run for U.S. Senate against Republican challenger Bob Schaffer.

Polis ran an aggressive campaign, tapping a personal fortune tied to developing online greeting cards, floral orders and other Internet ventures, to buy TV ads in May. That's a point in a primary campaign when candidates are usually counting their pennies in hopes of amassing the funding to run ads later on, when more voters are paying attention.

Polis also inundated voters with four-page color mailers promoting his plan to get the U.S. out of Iraq or to help Americans with the rising cost of health care. One showed a pair of hands and instructed recipients to sit on them if they wanted to "see what George Bush is doing to fix our economy."

But beating Fitz-Gerald was no easy feat. He was up against a candidate popular within the Democratic party for her tough leadership in the Senate, both when Democrats were in the minority at the legislature and, more recently, in the majority.

Fitz-Gerald also had strong union backing - a constituency considered reliable when it comes to translating support into votes.

But, in the end, Fitz-Gerald couldn't complete with Polis' blanketing the airwaves with commercials.

He may also have benefited from his wealth in another way: he rejected campaign donations from political action committees associated with industry interests and branded Fitz-Gerald as beholden to special interests for accepting PAC money from mining and energy.

Fitz-Gerald struck back, pointing out that Polis had millions of his private money invested in energy and mining companies. But it wasn't enough.

Polis beat Fitz-Gerald in several key areas, including Adams County, with the second-most registered Democrats, and a county Fitz-Gerald believed she needed to win to have a chance.

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