ROUNDUP: Joe O’Dea Stumbles Before Ballots Arrive

GOP Senate candidate Joe O’Dea is facing scathing criticism from various news outlets right before Colorado voters receive their ballots next week. O’Dea is under fire for his record of hurting and underpaying workers, being supported by a racist Trump megadonor who funded the border wall, misleading voters about protecting Social Security, and more. Read more below:

• Axios Denver: Senate candidate Joe O'Dea's business record in the spotlight

  • “O'Dea's Denver-based company Concrete Express Inc. — which now employs 300 people — since its founding in 1988 has been fined $135,000 by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for 28 worker safety violations, the Denver Business Journal reports.”

• Colorado Newsline: Major pro-O’Dea donor, heir to a Gilded Age banking fortune, wrote of ‘slavery redux’

  • “But as Election Day approaches, [O’Dea]’s getting a big boost from a megadonor closer to home: the Wyoming-based heir to a 19th-century banking fortune who wrote in a self-published autobiography that Black people are ‘belligerent’ and ‘unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations.’”

• Colorado Times Recorder: O’Dea Endorsed by Group That Supported Privatizing Social Security While Saying He Will Protect Benefits

  • “A new advertisement released last week from Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea included a quote from 60 Plus, the American Association of Senior Citizens, stating that O’Dea will protect Social Security and Medicare.But 60 Plus was founded to support efforts — most notably from George W. Bush in 2005 —  to privatize Social Security. Until 2016, the group was funded by the conservative Koch Brothers.”

• National Review: The Colorado GOP Remains Dormant

  • National Review says O’Dea “ranks among GOP disappointments of this cycle.”

Opinion & Editorials

• Durango Herald: Our View: Vote for Bennet: Champion for Southwest

  • “In our meeting, O’Dea said he’s a ‘centrist moderate Republican,’ ‘more in the middle’ and ‘more libertarian.’ O’Dea’s self-described political persuasions are worlds away from those of a ‘rock-solid conservative.’ He can’t be both. They represent wildly different bases.”

• Sentinel Colorado: ENDORSEMENT: Bennet’s record and goals make the case for his Senate re-election — O’Dea makes a strong case against himself

  • “O’Dea falls drastically short of what Colorado needs in the Senate on other fronts, where Bennet has shown courage, temperance and perseverance.”

• Colorado Newsline: Joe O’Dea thinks he understands Latinos, but he doesn’t

  • “Once voters look beyond who O’Dea is married to and his staged acts to appear likable, they will see that he is just another anti-immigrant Republican who supports harmful policies that will hurt Colorado’s Latinos.”

• Summit Daily: Opinion | Susan Knopf: Vote green

  • “In a 9News Next broadcast, he told Kyle Clark there is some debate as to the contribution of human activity. Clark called him out twice and O’Dea insisted the human contribution to climate change is in debate.”