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Some of Colorados most prominent Republicans started tearing their hair out last week.

Just as theyd warned, Democrats had stepped into the void left by the GOPs relatively quiet and low-spending candidates for governor and U.S. senator.

On June 8, the day voters began receiving primary ballots in the mail and just under three weeks before deadline to return them on June 28, voters woke up to a pair of TV ads that seemed to be in heavy rotation on nearly every channel.

At first glance, they appeared to be attack ads, sternly advising voters that gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez and U.S. Senate candidate Ron Hanks were too conservative for Colorado after listing some of their hardline positions, including opposition to abortion and gun control and support for former President Donald Trumps border wall.

The tell came in the disclaimer at the end of the ads, most obviously in the ad targeting Hanks: Paid for by Democratic Colorado, the narrator said.

Lopez, who came in third in the 2018 primary for governor, is running against Heidi Ganahl, a University of Colorado regent, with the winner facing Gov. Jared Polis in the general election. Hanks and construction company CEO Joe ODea, a first-time candidate, are vying for the chance to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

As details about the massive TV and digital ad buys emerged in the neighborhood of $1 million a week for each ad campaign it became clear that Democrats were attempting the political move pioneered by Missouri former U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Democrat who spent heavily in the 2012 Republican primary for her seat and succeeded in pushing the furthest-right candidate across the finish line.

Amid what could be an ideal environment for the states GOP to stage a comeback after nearly two decades on the ropes, GOP strategists are concerned the partys most reliable primary voters could sink the partys hopes of retaking some of the offices lost in the last several cycles, when Democrats won every statewide race and took firm control of both chambers of the General Assembly.

Some Colorado Republicans with long memories fear a replay of the 2010 general election, when the states electorate bucked the Republican tsunami that washed over most of the rest of the country in the last Democratic presidents first midterm election.

That year, Democrats spent around $500,000 to hammer the Republican frontrunner for the open governors seat, Scott McInnis, a former congressman from the Western Slope, for a burgeoning plagiarism scandal. McInnis barely lost the nomination to political newcomer Dan Maes, a tea party candidate, whose own scandals soon engulfed his campaign, nearly costing Colorado Republicans major-party status in the state when Maes received just 11% of the vote after former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo ran on a third-party ticket. Then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper won the first of two terms as governor against the divided field.

By most measures fundraising, endorsements, national support Ganahl and ODea have been the leading candidates in their respective primaries this year, though Lopez and Hanks made the ballot by winning the approval of delegates to the Republican state assembly and have pitched their bids as the partys grassroots taking on the the more moderate, establishment candidates.

Its an ideal environment for interlopers to push the under-resourced underdogs to the partys base, who might not otherwise grasp the sharp distinctions between the primary candidates without the help of more advertising than their rivals can afford.

Both parties have attempted the maneuver over the last dozen years in Colorado, though the scale and scope of the Democrats intervention in this years Republican primaries are unprecedented.

In part, thats because Ganahl and ODea have only been on their air with modest ad buys, if at all, leaving an opening for the Democrats ads to dominate.

Also last week, a series of anonymous mailers began landing in mailboxes belonging to likely Republican primary voters purporting to contrast Hanks and ODea, highlighting Hanks rock-ribbed conservative positions with ODeas less doctrinaire record, including making campaign donations to Democrats including Bennet and voicing support for the infrastructure package signed last year by President Joe Biden.

A few days later, ads paid for by the Democrats House Majority PAC, a committee aligned with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, began running similar TV ads tagging Lori Saine, one of four GOP candidates running in the states new, 8th Congressional District, as way too conservative for Colorado. The ad even touched on the same issues as the ads aimed at Lopez and Hanks: her support for Trumps border wall and opposition to abortion and gun control.

Like Ganahl and Hanks, Saines Republican rivals roundly condemned Democrats attempts to push primary voters her way, while the ads sponsors counter they are instead taking to the airwaves and cable channels to educate voters on just how conservative the Republicans are.

ODea swung back quickly with a 60-second radio ad blasting Democrats for trying to hijack the Republican nomination for Ron Hanks because they know they can beat him in the general election. To bolster its message, the ad included clips from pundits describing Hanks as absolutely unelectable in a statewide race in Colorado.

A week after the ads started, ODea filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over the mailers that compared his record and Hanks on hot-button issues. He also sought an injunction in federal court to prohibit further distribution of the fliers and asked prosecutors to consider filing criminal charges over what he maintains are factual errors in the brochures.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee hit the caps-lock key and scolded Democrats for revealing their historic weakness by spending big in Colorados REPUBLICAN Senate primary to try and stir up drama.

Two years earlier, the NRSC did the same thing in Colorados Democratic Senate primary, though without causing as much of a stir or successfully advancing their preferred candidates to the general election.

First, early in the race to pick a Democrat to run against Republican Cory Gardner, the Republicans publicized a billboard it designed that called one of the Democratic Senate candidates, former congressional nominee Stephany Rose Spaulding, too liberal for Colorado. The outdoor ad pictured Spaulding alongside progressive hero U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New Yorker known as AOC, and her fellow Squad member U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

After Hickenlooper ended a brief presidential run and jumped into the crowded Senate race a few months later, the NRSC hired a high-tech mobile billboard to circle the venue where AOC was scheduled to headline the Boulder Democrats annual dinner. The Republicans illuminated, three-sided sign and coordinated, geographically targeted Facebook ads drew attention to similarities between AOC and Andrew Romanoff, one of the more outspoken liberals in the Senate field, declaring Romanoff & AOC One and the Same! and AOC & Andrews Agenda Medicare for all, Green New Deal, stricter gun control.

As the 2018 Senate primary neared, the NRSC took the unusual step of airing negative ads attacking Hickenlooper, who was facing Romanoff in the primary. Simply educating the voters about one of Gardners potential opponents, the Republicans said.

One ad featured Gardner who shared the cost of the ad hammering Hickenlooper over remarks hed made while still a presidential candidate, expressing his reluctance to run for the Senate. I dont think Im cut out for that, Hickenlooper said as Gardner frowned.

The other NRSC ad focused on recent findings by Colorados Independent Ethics Commission that Hickenlooper had violated a state gift ban by accepting two private plane rides when he was governor. The commission also found him in contempt after he defied a subpoena to testify at a hearing in the matter and fined him $2,750 the largest fine the commission had issued at that point.

Hickenlooper won the primary weeks later and went on to defeat Gardner in the November election.

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Parties have a history of playing in each other's primaries in Colorado - Colorado Springs Gazette