A new Trafalgar poll shows Joe O'Dea, the GOP candidate hopeful to represent Colorado in the U.S. Senate, is trailing incumbent Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet by just 2 points; and the Republican told Newsmax Thursday the change is because voters in his state are "sick and tired" of President Joe Biden's economy and of Bennet voting with him almost all the time.
"You can feel it on the ground here in Colorado," O'Dea said on Newsmax's "National Report." "I've been all across the state for the last 67 weeks, and I can tell you people are unhappy."
Voters are concerned about the price of gasoline and diesel fuel, the cost of groceries, and particularly about crime, which is "at an all-time high" in Colorado, he added.
"People are concerned about all of it, and that's what they're talking about," said O'Dea. "I'm a contractor, not a politician. I'm just a working guy that decided that we need to get in this race because we need an option that will take our country back."
O'Dea has been endorsed by the Denver police union and 22 sheriffs in the state, and he said that's because they know he'll be tough on crime.
"But when you have Joe Biden and Michael Bennet defunding and demoralizing police and talking about how bad these people are, that really hits home for me because my dad was a 30-year veteran of the Denver Police Department," said O'Dea. "Crime is out of control here in Colorado. We've got DAs who are doing cashless bonds right now, turning people back onto the streets who should be held.
"We're No. 1 in car thefts, No. 1 in bank robberies and No. 3 in violent crime. That's not the Colorado I grew up in, and it's time we make a change here."
He also slammed Biden for his comments taking credit for the rise in Social Security payments, when that has been tied to inflation for years through federal law.
"We've got record inflation right now," he said. "It's a tax on working Americans. We've lost 10-12% of our buying power here in Colorado because of this inflationary tax that Biden and Bennet put on us, and it's crunching working Americans."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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