Joe O’Dea Trades “Moderate” for MAGA Money
“[O’Dea] claims to be: a moderate who will work across the aisle. He would be more believable if he didn’t hang around with the very far-right mega-donors who repel most folks.”
GOP Senate candidate Joe O’Dea is chipping away at his own dishonest attempt of labeling himself as a moderate by fundraising with election fraud conspiracy theorists, MAGA Republicans in Miami, and Mitch McConnell in DC.
According to a new report from Colorado Times Recorder, one of O’Dea’s top donors attended the January 6 insurrection and promoted debunked election conspiracy theories. O’Dea downplayed the insurrection and said it was a “rally” and previously stated that he had friends who attended the insurrection.
Colorado Politics columnist Hal Bidlack highlights in his most recent piece that O’Dea’s moderate facade would be more “believable if he didn’t hang around with the very far-right mega-donors who repel most folks,” and that O’Dea “doesn’t get to have it both ways.”
Read more from Colorado Times Recorder and Colorado Politics below:
U.S. Senate hopeful Joe O’Dea took some flack for his decision to attend an NRSC fundraiser tonight in Miami alongside a trio of election deniers: Arizona’s Blake Masters, Adam Laxalt from Nevada, and Ohioan J.D. Vance. As it turns out, however, one of his biggest local donors also believes in the Big Lie.
Wendy Ferland Meritt, the wife of O’Dea’s longtime business partner Xernie Merritt, is an election fraud conspiracist who attended the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last year. Since O’Dea launched his campaign she has donated to his campaign and hosted fundraisers not only for O’Dea, but also for his fellow Republican candidate Heidi Ganahl, who is running for Governor.
…
Meritt also donated the maximum amount to O’Dea’s campaign, according to FEC campaign finance filings.
…
In January 2021, Meritt said she had traveled to the U.S. Capitol to protest the 2020 election results.
…
O’Dea is campaigning as a moderate Republican, a frame reflected by national news coverage. During a debate with another Republican Senate hopeful in June, O’Dea said that he was disappointed in how long it took for Trump to call off his supporters during the insurrection but did not think Trump deserved blame for causing it.
…
“I had friends that were out at January 6, they went nowhere near the building,” O’Dea said. “That’s a rally in my opinion.”
…
O’Dea himself has campaigned with election fraud conspiracists, both here in Colorado and as previously noted, tonight in Florida.
Colorado Politics: Column: BIDLACK | Like Gardner, O'Dea not an average Joe
I’ve written before about how O’Dea managed to find time from being an aw-shucks kind of regular guy talking to regular people to go on a trail ride with rich donors and to head off to meet and bend the knee to Mitch McConnell, hardly traits of a moderate who wants to shake up business as normal. And in the few weeks before the election, he’s at it again. Last Thursday, O’Dea attended a fundraiser that headlined extreme candidates like Mehmet Oz and J.D. Vance.
…
So, good old Joe is happy to hang around with, and raise money from, the most radical election-denying, insurrection-supporting, vile candidates to be found.
…
Oh, and if you have thousands of dollars lying around, O’Dea has another fundraiser, to be hosted by Mitch McConnell, coming up on the 19th, because he is a moderate who will oppose McConnell, right? Far, far right? All this to run a fake-moderate campaign against an actual moderate and the only guy of either party running for senate who is not taking a penny of PAC or national lobbyist money.
…
I suspect the biggest problem O’Dea has is that he is running against that which he claims to be: a moderate who will work across the aisle. He would be more believable if he didn’t hang around with the very far-right mega-donors who repel most folks. O’Dea seems willing to sup at the trough of the millionaires and billionaires, but wants you to think that he is actually hanging around with regular folks (who presumably have their rights in balance?)
But he doesn’t get to have it both ways.