Close

More Tough Questions for Gardner: “Where Is Cory?” And “Why Won’t He Defy Trump?”

Colorado and National Press Profile Senator in Hiding

Pueblo Chieftain: Puebloans “Calling on Gardner to be Unbiased During the Trial”

Senator Cory Gardner voted yesterday to block subpoenaing key documents and testimony from first-hand witnesses, meeting the expectation of “strategists on either side of the aisle” that he is “unlikely to break rank.” 

For weeks, Gardner has tried to dodge basic questions about whether he will work to guarantee first-hand witnesses or admit new evidence. His “invisibility” and “caginess” earned scrutiny from national and local reporters, Coloradans have protested at his office and new polling shows he’s underwater with voters. 

Take a look at how things are going for the most vulnerable Republican incumbent in the country:

New York Times: Where Is Cory Gardner?

This report ran on the front page. 

  • They are members of one of the most coveted groups in electoral politics: suburban women. But in their field of vision, Mr. Gardner, Colorado’s top Republican officeholder, is almost nowhere to be found.
  • “I don’t hear him speaking out on things,” said Jennifer Gremmert, 50, the executive director of an energy nonprofit…. But when it comes to the bipartisan stands that Ms. Gremmert said she prized in a candidate, “I don’t see him.”
  • But Mr. Gardner’s invisibility — he hasn’t held a town hall-style meeting in two years — is also pragmatic, a means of avoiding questions about his ties to the divisive president, especially as the Senate impeachment trial nears. 
  • Last week on Capitol Hill, he evaded reporters eager to pin down his thoughts, his handler hurrying him into the nearest elevator. On Thursday evening, when a local Colorado reporter caught him at the Denver airport, a smiling Mr. Gardner offered still no clarity. “We have a trial,” he said. “That’s where we’re at right now.”
  • Impeachment has served only to highlight Mr. Gardner’s silence, whether on his own record or the national issues du jour, according to other Colorado Republicans. His caginess has frustrated some Trump supporters in Colorado, whose votes Mr. Gardner will almost certainly need to prevail in November, when Democrats are likely to come out in force in the presidential election.

Washington Post: He’s a vulnerable Republican in a state that’s trending blue. So why won’t he defy Trump on impeachment?

  • Gardner is perhaps the most vulnerable Republican of all this year, seeking a second term in a state Trump lost by nearly five points in 2016. Colorado has only shifted further left in the time since as younger, more liberal voters have flooded in and Democrats have tipped a registration deficit in their favor.
  • Colorado strategists on either side of the aisle and nonpartisan analysts all agree: Gardner is highly unlikely to break rank. And the reason reflects the reality of politics for GOP officeholders in the Trump era.
  • What little he has said about impeachment — advisers acknowledge he is being conspicuously quiet on the issue — has been critical, describing the process as “a total circus.” Having already endorsed Trump’s reelection, the 45-year-old has shown no inclination to bow to Democratic demands for what they describe as the basic ingredients of a fair trial.
  • “Gardner has made a calculus: The Republican base is more necessary to his reelection than being that profile in courage who would try to persuade the persuadable middle,” said Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State.
  • “When my party is wrong, I’ll say it,” Gardner told viewers in an ad that aired during the closing weeks of the 2014 campaign.
  • But on most issues, Gardner has fallen into line, voting with the president’s position nearly 90 percent of the time and refraining from any stands that might draw Trump’s notorious ire on Twitter.
  • Gardner — whose office declined an interview request for this story, as it has with nearly all impeachment-related media queries in recent months — still faces a mortal threat to his senate career.

KRDO Colorado Springs: Protesters demand answers from Colorado Senator Cory Gardner

The leader of the group, Jeri Jensen, told KRDO, “We’re here today to ask him to support the call for witnesses, the call for documentary evidence. We want him to see the truth, hear the truth and speak the truth. That’s what we’re here for today.”

KDVR Denver: “Gardner Hasn’t Done a Fox31 Interview on Impeachment Since This Exchange Went Viral in October”

“Gardner has declined scheduled interviews and is refusing to say whether he’d vote for witnesses. In fact he hasn’t done a Fox31 interview on impeachment since this exchange went viral in October.”

CNN: TV Station Finally Lands Interview with Senator… At Airport

“There are 100 different ways to say no comment. Lately though, Republican senators haven’t even been saying it though — they’ve just been giving reporters the silent treatment. Case in point, Senator Cory Gardner… A walk-and-talk on a moving walkway at Denver International — and Gardner didn’t really say much.”

Colorado Times Recorder: Experts Say Gardner Likely to Vote With Republicans on Impeachment

  • Speculation has filled a vacuum left by the Republican senator himself, who has made few statements to the press about how he views the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, in which he is now a juror. And Gardner himself couldn’t be reached to explain his stance.
  • Among experts on Colorado politics, though, the consensus is clear: Gardner can be expected to fall in line with the Republican caucus
  • In the words of Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute: “He’s a partisan.”
  • “I would be very surprised, at least knowing what we know now, if Gardner defects from his party’s line on the final impeachment vote,” Kyle Saunders, a professor of political science at Colorado State University, wrote in an email.
  • Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote that he “wouldn’t expect Gardner to deviate from the Republican leadership.”
  • A similar scenario played out during the Senate votes to repeal Obamacare in 2017, when Gardner’s noncommittal public statements cane in advance of repeated votes in favor of repeal.
  • According to Coleman, Gardner’s voting record as a whole demonstrates his adherence to the Republican agenda at all turns, his public statements notwithstanding.
  • “He voted for both Trump’s Supreme Court picks, the GOP tax bill, ACA repeal, and was supportive of the President’s emergency border declaration last year,” he wrote.

Pueblo Chieftain: Puebloans rally as impeachment trial nears

  • As the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump nears, dozens of protesters on Monday rallied outside Republican Sen. Cory Gardner’s Pueblo office at the Thatcher Building, calling on Gardner to be unbiased during the trial.
  • “We’re here to ask Sen. Cory Gardner to be a fair and impartial judge for the impeachment trial,” said Jeri Jensen, a co-leader for a group called Pueblo Indivisible, which helped organize the rally. “He has endorsed President Trump for re-election and President Trump has helped Cory Gardner raise money for his campaign, so we’re concerned about his ability to be fair and impartial.”
  • “We’re here today to ask him to support the call for witnesses, the call for documentary evidence. We want him to see the truth, hear the truth, and speak the truth and that’s what we’re here for today.”

###

Next Post

Vulnerable Republicans Still Losing on Health Care As Toxic Legal Push to End Pre-Existing Conditions Protections Casts Shadow Over 2020 Election

Stay Connected


ICYMI: For Democrats, abortion pill case opens new front in election-year battle [The Washington Post]

13 hrs Ago

ago on Twitter

Close

Defend Our Democratic
Senate Majority


Sign up to receive text updates. By participating, you consent to receive recurring committee & fundraising messages from the DSCC, including automated text messages. Msg & Data rates may apply. Privacy Policy & ToS.

or