In November 2020, I watched as the congressional campaign I was managing won with the highest percentage of victory the candidate I was working for had ever received. Two weeks later, I found myself living in a state that I had only been in during a layover at the Denver airport.

I was excited to move to Colorado. While I had spent years building relationships and enjoying a steady career in Wisconsin politics, I was excited for a new challenge. There were sure to be bountiful political opportunities here — the hopeful promise any purple state has. Two years later, many Colorado Republicans are now saying the state is solidly blue … or are going so far as to say Democrats will dominate for a “generation.”

With all due respect to these pundits, many of whom I know personally and have the utmost admiration for, I disagree. Certainly, if the Colorado Republican Party continues to do what it has been doing, those self-fulfilling prophecies will inevitably come true — but that does not have to be the case. A few lessons from my former home state, Wisconsin, could light the path toward a Republican renewal here.

Wisconsin and Colorado are similar in many ways. They are almost the same size in population. Yet over the last decade, Wisconsin has had very different political outcomes. This cycle, Republicans up and down the ballot suffered major defeats here, which was not the case in Wisconsin. Republicans there increased their majorities in both chambers of the Legislature.

They reelected the incumbent U.S. senator, Ron Johnson, flipped another statewide office, the state treasurer, and won a longheld Democratic U.S. House

ALEC HANNA

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl debate at the Penrose House in Colorado Springs in October.

seat. While Wisconsin Republicans did not win every race they were hoping to, the losses they suffered were hard fought and closely contested.

So, why do Republicans in Wisconsin win while Colorado Republicans suffer significant losses? From my experiences campaigning in both states, there are three main lessons Republicans in Colorado should learn from Wisconsin.

The first is fundraising. Within a few weeks of my arrival in Colorado, I connected with the then-executive director of the Colorado Republican Committee. One of the topics we discussed was how restrictive campaign finance laws are here. He was and is correct, they are quite limiting. However, instead of trying to compete in this arena, it seems Republicans use these restrictions as an excuse to not put in the effort and/or think that the little amounts they raise will be enough to win.

The data does not show Republicans necessarily need to outspend Democrats, though when trying to flip a seat or take an open one it helps. But they need to be more competitive. Sen. Johnson, in Wisconsin, was outspent by his Democrat opponent by 14.14%, yet he still won. Contrast that with

the Senate race here in Colorado, where Michael Bennet outspent O’dea by 189.17%. While there are other factors in play, such as Johnson and Bennet being incumbents, the fact of the matter is you cannot compete at the polls if you are not fighting to close fundraising gaps.

Analyzing the five comparable statewide offices on the ballot in both states, the Democrats outspent the Republicans in Colorado and Wisconsin, however the totals again were much closer in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, the Republicans were only outspent by 35.48% whereas in Colorado, the Republicans were outspent by 280.1%.

The largest victory in a statewide race in Wisconsin was only 3.41%; the closest in Colorado was 10.65%.

When the top of the ticket is getting outspent nearly 4-to-1, this affects down ballot, too. Compound that with poor fundraising in their campaigns and you have a recipe for disaster. Combined, Colorado House Democrats outspend Republicans by 113.15%. While this can be slightly dubious considering some seats are more competitive than others, if we look at the

Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’dea and his wife, Celeste, walk on the main stage after the race was called for incumbent Michael Bennet during the Colorado GOP Election Night Party last month at the Doubletree by Hilton in Greenwood Village.

10 closest contests, the Democrats won all 10 and, with only one exception, outspent their Republican opponent and did so massively. By average, these nine Democrats outspent their Republican counterparts by 458.92%.

In Wisconsin, out of the five most competitive State Assembly races (the Assembly is the name for the lower chamber), Republicans won four of the five. Staying com

petitive on the fundraising totals allowed them to win these swing districts.

I have long heard Republicans cry foul over “dark money” groups. I am not denying the existence of these organizations or that they don’t play a role in this equation. However, the evidence of “hard dollar” disparities is too overwhelming to downplay by blaming these outside groups. Republicans simply aren’t competing.

Meeting voters

This leads me into my second major lesson from Wisconsin, voter contacts. After the election, the Republican Party of Wisconsin posted some fascinating statistics on social media. This election cycle, the Republican Party of Wisconsin knocked on over 1.2 million doors, made over 3 million phone calls, hosted over 13,000 events, and had over 74,000 volunteer engagements. This totaled over 4.2 million voter contact attempts. This unified approach, led by the state Republican party, delivered results for Republicans up and down ballot.

Here in Colorado, voter contact is disjointed, left largely to individual campaigns. Some campaigns are better than others at recruiting volunteers to make calls or knock on doors. Individual campaigns might carry other candidates’ literature, but the scripts that canvassers and callers rely on are written by the campaigns who organized the outreach and almost entirely benefit only that candidate. Because of this setup, it is hard to say what the voter contacts were here, but it likely shadowed the Wisconsin figures. A unified, major effort is the most effec

tive way to reach voters.