MAGA candidate Ron Hanks stood at the head of a table of supporters wearing red shirts emblazoned with his name Tuesday night at a Grand Junction brewery, thanking them for their efforts – after his more moderate “establishment” opponent was named the victor in Colorado’s third congressional district Republican primary.
“I don’t take anything that happens personally. But what I do see is the Republican Party has basically made itself irredeemable,” Hanks told The Independent shortly after his loss was confirmed.
Hanks, a hardline Trump-style conservative who repeatedly called attention during his campaign to his attendance at Jan. 6, came in second, beaten by attorney Jeff Hurd, a father of five who’s never before run for office. They were fighting to replace embattled incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert, who emerged victorious in her campaign across the state Tuesday night after abandoning CD3 in the wake of a string of controversies.
Hanks had railed against Hurd as an “empty suit” supported by the “establishment” Colorado Republican old guard; the split between that faction and grassroots MAGA stalwarts is indicative of the nationwide GOP schism.
“This party should fall,” Hanks told The Independent. “This party should collapse. We are so infiltrated with people that have impure motives that we can’t trust people in our own party. It’s like having the enemy wearing our uniform in war.”
The Hanks volunteers and supporters gathered in an event room at Kannah Creek Brewing Company as the race drew to a close, watching returns on smart phones and a tablet as game shows and sitcoms played in the background on a large television mounted on the wall. Italian specialties, fried apple pie and local brews were on the menu; distrust of the voting process, the government and even fellow Republicans was on attendees’ minds. One state party official and key Hanks supporter, who pointed out that her bedazzled stars-and-stripes purse perfectly fit her gun, looked crestfallen as it became apparent the election was not going their way.
About two hours after the watch party kicked off – as results were showing Hurd leading by almost 15 points – the mood was somber. But Hanks, a combat veteran with 32 years of service under his belt, maintained his trademark measured speech and matter-of-fact delivery.
“This is all a campaign, as in a military campaign, military battle,” he told The Independent, placing his phone down and elbow on the edge of the table.
The race to replace Boebert may not have been burdened by her particular brand of shock and awe, but it was not free of political shenanigans. While Hurd ran a staid campaign that avoided overt mudslinging, Democrat-affiliated and Republican-backed PACs both ran ads taking aim at Hanks.
“And so I think we’ve set ourselves up here for a Republican party that can’t redeem itself, and that’s just cold analytics,” Hanks.
Applying that same “military intel-type assessment” to his address to supporters, Hanks gave a rundown of other state GOP race results – noting that fellow grassroots candidates such as state GOP chair Dave Williams had not triumphed in other congressional bids.
He acknowledged Boebert’s CD4 victory, however, telling them she was “probably the least deserving of any of the pro-MAGA candidates.”
One supporter, one of the few not nearing retirement age, expressed surprise to The Independent that Boebert had won her new district on the other side of the state, saying he believed her reputation had been too “tarnished.”
Hanks, for his part, said he had “grave concerns about her behavior ultimately being her downfall.”
He then leaned into hard-right conspiracy theories. “And I can predict … the uniparty, the Deep State, is going to make sure they exploit that,” he said, adding that he was unsure about his own future with the party and in politics.
“I don’t know what that will look like,” he said. “I want to support Donald Trump’s efforts, but everything I’m seeing is a setback to Donald Trump’s ability to implement, even schedule, an agenda.”
Ultimately, Hanks thanked his supporters for their help, telling them “there was no ego in this for me; it was a mission. I got marching orders to be a part of it.
“I’ve been amazed at your efforts and truly humbled by it,” he said, adding that it would take some time to study the election results and that he was keen to see the different county breakdowns.
“It’s hard work, and I’m eternally grateful for it,” he said of their campaign efforts. “It’s really unsavory to be in this political realm. There are people in this party that I hope I never have to speak to or see again.”
Despite that, however, he said he’d been bolstered on the campaign trail by “how nice people are, Americans are.”
“We’re out there,” he said of like-minded grassroots voters. “Right now, we’ve got a government that we don’t own, that we can’t control, that we cannot even get a foothold into -- and I guess we have to remember the goodness in this, because if it gets to civil war ... it’s going to be hard to know who’s on the wrong side.”
