Colorado GOP picks Greg Lopez to fill Ken Buck's vacant US House seat

A Republican committee on Thursday night nominated former Parker Mayor and two-time Colorado gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez to run in a June special election to serve out the remainder of former U.S. Rep. Ken Buck's term.

Pitching himself as a "placeholder" candidate, Lopez argued that since he isn't running in the June 25 Republican primary for Buck's seat — which will appear on the same ballot as the special election — his nomination wouldn't tilt the scale toward any of the primary candidates and instead would let voters decide who to nominate for a full term in the solidly Republican 4th Congressional District.

It was the best possible outcome for primary contender U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, the two-term Republican who moved into the district earlier this year to run for Buck's seat but decided against seeking the nomination for the special election.

With campaign coffers dwarfing those of her opponents and near-universal name identification, Boebert urged delegates to pick a nominee who wasn't competing in the primary, so they wouldn't "taint the entire process and give this candidate an unfair leg up."

It took six rounds of balloting by the district's roughly 100-member Republican central committee before Lopez secured a majority of delegate votes at a convention held at the Lincoln County fairgrounds in Hugo, a small town about 100 miles east of the Front Range.

Lopez edged past former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, a Logan County commissioner and cattle rancher from Sterling, 51-46, in the final round of voting, after seven other candidates had been eliminated.

"My opportunity is to make sure that we maintain a conservative voice for this district," Lopez told reporters after claiming victory.

As the Republican nominee, Lopez is a strong favorite to win the special election in the state's most reliably Republican congressional district, which voted for Donald Trump in 2020 by a nearly 20-point margin.

Democrats are scheduled to pick their nominee for the special election in an online convention on April 1.

Buck, the Windsor Republican who represented the 4th CD for nine years, resigned last week, triggering a special election to fill his vacant U.S. House seat, for only the second time in state history.

The other Republicans who vied for the nomination to the special election included primary candidates former state Sen. Ted Harvey, state Reps. Mike Lynch of Wellington and Richard Holtorf of Akron, business consultant and former 2nd Congressional District GOP nominee Peter Yu, former top congressional staffer Chris Phelen and Hispanic Energy Alliance chairman Floyd Trujillo.

Castle Pines nuclear energy executive Scott Melbye, a late entrant in the race, billed himself as a placeholder candidate, like Lopez.

Boebert and another primary candidate, former talk radio host Deborah Flora, announced earlier this month that they would sit out the special election and instead concentrate on winning the concurrent primary election. Both Boebert and Flora have already qualified for the primary by petition.

Buck's resignation left House Republicans with a slim 218-213 majority, meaning the GOP can only afford to lose two Republican lawmakers on party-line votes. That margin narrows further in a few weeks, when Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallaghers's resignation takes effect.

Midway through the six-hour meeting, Lopez asked delegates to avoid putting their thumb on the scale in the primary.

"The Democratic Party, they fight to control the state and the nation. We fight to control the party, we fight amongst ourselves," Lopez said. "If you should choose tonight a candidate that's already declared, you will continue to fester that chaos and confusion. If you choose someone who has already committed to you that they're not going to seek election, then we clear the path for them."

Harvey, who held the lead in early votes but was eliminated after dropping to third place in the next-to-last round, warned delegates against following Boebert's and Flora's advice to pick a placeholder candidate.

"I think they did it to support their own candidates that weren't here tonight, and I believe that's putting not just us at risk, but it is putting our nation at risk," Harvey said. "I think the next six months going into November is going to be some of the most volatile six months in my lifetime, and to suggest that we send a placeholder to Washington, D.C., to represent 800,000 people is irresponsible."

Harvey then urged his supporters to vote for Sonnenberg in the upcoming final round, but enough of them voted for Lopez to hand him a narrow win.

Thursday's GOP convention is the latest turn in a twisty series of developments that began last fall when Buck announced he wasn't seeking reelection to a sixth term from the district, which covers suburban Douglas County and Colorado's Eastern Plains.

Over the next few months, a dozen Republicans launched campaigns for the seat. The field reset in late December when Boebert declared that she was abandoning her bid for a third term from the more competitive Western Slope-based 3rd Congressional District she represents and would instead run to replace Buck.

After nearly losing reelection in 2022 in her Republican-leaning district, Boebert faced an uphill battle to return to Washington. Democrat Adam Frisch, who came within fewer than 600 votes of beating Boebert last cycle and was seeking a rematch, outraised the Republican incumbent all year. At the same time, Boebert was facing a well-funded primary challenger from first-time candidate Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney who secured endorsements from a number of leading Republicans.

Days after Boebert said she was switching districts, Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn announced he wasn't running for another term. This set off a scramble in the heavily Republican 5th Congressional District and left all three of Colorado's GOP-held House seats open heading into this year's election.

But Buck's surprise announcement on March 12 that he was quitting Congress early threw the board in the air.

"Forcing an unnecessary Special Election on the same day as the Primary Election will confuse voters, result in a lame duck Congressman on day one, and leave the 4th District with no representation for more than three months. The 4th District deserves better," Boebert said in a sharply worded statement criticizing her fellow Republican's move.

Boebert and Flora maintained the special election nominating process was unfairly tilted toward competitors from the district's sparsely populated rural counties, whose party officers made up a disproportionate share of the convention delegates.

Describing Buck's move as part of a "swampy backroom deal to try to rig an election," Boebert also said she didn't want to create another vacant House seat, since she would have to resign from the 3rd CD seat she currently holds if she won the special election, leaving her constituents without representation through the end of the year.