This is the moment for reporters to dig into Donald Trump’s impact on state legislative races in Colorado, and no races are more important than those in swing state senate districts, like Republican Laura Woods’ contest against Democrat Rachel Zenzinger and the race between GOP Arapahoe County Commissioner Nancy Doty and Democratic state Rep. Daniel Kagan.

Both Woods and Doty have said they’ll back Trump, with Woods enthusiastically calling Trump the “people’s candidate.”

But reporters have yet to question Doty in any substantive way about her support for Trump. We have more than a hint that Doty thinks highly of Trump, because Doty called Sarah Palin’s July 12 endorsement speech of Trump “spot on,” and Doty said she “really enjoyed hearing Trump himself speak.

“I thought Sarah Palin was right on, just spot on! She was very, very good – brought a clear message that people need to get on board.  And I really enjoyed hearing [Donald] Trump,” Doty told KNUS 710-AM host Julie Hayden when asked for her “thoughts” on the speeches.

If Republicans lose their one-seat majority in the state senate, Democrats will likely control state government. So the stakes are high for Doty and Woods.

In a light-hearted attempt to encourage reporters to ask Doty about her “spot-on” Sarah comment, I offer this video:

Republican  Congressional candidate Casper Stockham thinks it was “wrong” for U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman to produce an ad critical of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Coffman says he still may vote for Trump, which is not surprising since Coffman’s actual factual positions on abortion (opposed to a woman’s right to choose), immigration (opposed to birthright citizenship), Obama (questioning his citizenship), the debt ceiling (opposed to increasing it), and others are in line with Trump.

“If you are going to be a Republican, be a Republican,” said Stockham. “I’m voting for Trump, absolutely, because I’m the party nominee. I’m running for Congress on the Republican ticket. I find it fascinating what goes on in politics.”

Stockham is challenging U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette to represent Denver, a dense Democratic district, even more anti-Trump than Coffman’s Aurora district.

So I asked Stockham if he thought about distancing himself from Trump.

“I understand why [Coffman] did it, but I think it was wrong for him to do that,” Stockham said. “You would never find any Democrat Congressperson running a negative ad against Hillary Clinton or any nominee. And the reason is, the Democrat Party has its act together and the Republican Party does not.”

Stockham said he’s running “to serve the community.”

Dan Caplis, a prominent Colorado Republican and conservative talk-radio host, denounced Mike Coffman’s latest TV ad this morning, saying on air that the ad “helps Hillary Clinton” and that Coffman must have “concluded in his mind and his heart and his conscience that Donald Trump cannot win.”

Caplis, whose name has been floated over the years as a possible GOP gubernatorial candidate, says Trump can win, and he wants to have Coffman on his KNUS 710-AM show to discuss the topic further.

Caplis: So you think Hillary and her camp are happy or unhappy with the Mike Coffman ad. Let’s not deny the obvious. Let’s respect each other with the truth.  This helps Hillary Clinton.

And because of the quality of Mike as is a man in a public servant, I give him the ultimate benefit of the doubt that he would not have done this unless he’s already truly concluded in his mind and his heart and his conscience that Donald Trump cannot win.

Maybe I’m giving Mike too much benefit of the doubt here, but I think he has earned, because the I just can’t imagine him being willing to help Hillary Clinton like this if he truly thought Trump had a chance to win for all the reasons I mentioned earlier, so I give Mike the benefit of the doubt.  He must’ve concluded that that this race is over and Donald Trump has no chance to win…

I completely disagree with that. I think Donald Trump is failing miserably. I think he’s failing at trying to throw the race away, for all the reasons I talked about at the top of the show. Donald Trump is throwing this race away, but he still has a very good chance to win, because America has already rejected Hillary Clinton. Trump still is a very good chance to win.

So if Mike Coffman has concluded, if we ever get the chance to talk to Mike about this and his explanation is ‘Yeah, I knew this ad would help Hillary Clinton but I’ve already concluded Trump has no chance to win,’ I would respectfully disagree with him.

Colorado Springs radio host Richard Randall landed an interview with Donald Trump Friday, and Trump took advantage of the obscure conversation to declare that the U.S. has a “phony, artificial stock market,” that will do “some very bad and very interesting things” when “interest rates go up a little bit.”

Trump has criticized the stock market in the past, but his statement here, on KVOR-740 AM in Colorado Springs, lays out his views as starkly as they’ve been expressed anywhere, as far as I can tell:

Trump: (@7:45) You know, one of the things, there are so many problems in our country that you can speak for two hours and you don’t cover the subject. The other thing that just came out, is home ownership. It’s the lowest in 58 years. Did they say 58? The lowest home ownership we’ve had, percentage-wise that we’ve had in this country in 58 years. The only thing we have is a phony, artificial stock market. So people think—But I’ll tell you what, nothing relates to the stock. Even in New York, on Wall Street and stuff, people think Wall Street. It’s a whole different world. The stock market is a phony number and it’s gotten there because nobody is paying any interest. When interest rates go up a little bit, you’ll see some very bad and very interesting things happen.

In a post yesterday, I reported that Arvada State Sen. Laura Woods referred to Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and his running mate as “gun grabbers.”

Woods’ comment was confusing because Johnson is an uncompromising gun proponent, opposing virtually every gun-safety proposal out there, including proposals to stop suspected terrorists, whose names appear of the federal “no-fly” list, from buying guns.

Informed of Woods’ gun-grabber comment, Joe Hunter, a spokesman for Johnson, said Woods may be upset about Johnson’s willingness to have a “conversation” about how to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

“There is no gun grabbing going on here,” said Johnson, adding that Woods’ attack may be “coming from” her opposition to Johnson’s statements about guns and the mentally ill.

Hunter: “Johnson has acknowledged that when someone is clearly mentally ill and clearly capable of doing harm to others and him or herself, [Johnson] has said we should have a conversation about how to handle that, about what to do about that.”

Woods still won’t return my call seeking to know if this is, in fact, why she called Johnson a gun grabber, so we’re forced to speculate.

Woods, who’s running against Democrat Rachel Zenzinger to represent the Arvada/Westminster senate district, stated on Facebook:

Woods: “Dana Kirsch (sp?) Said Johnson isn’t any different than Obama on 2A. How is that a libertarian idea? I’ll never vote for him.”

A search for what “Dana Kirsch” wrote about Johnson, Obama, and the Second Amendment turned up nothing, but I struck gold with “Dana Loesch,” a right-wing gun extremist and talk radio host who tweeted a sentence very similar to Woods’ comment on Facebook:

Loesch: “I’ll post the audio of my past interview with Gary Johnson on 2A. His answers were in line with Obama’s positions on the issue.”

Loesch: “I see a lot of people talking Gary Johnson but after I interviewed him on 2A I found he’s not much different from Obama on gun laws.”

So, it’s pretty clear Woods was actually referring to Loesch, who is also upset with Johnson’s willingness to have a conversation about guns and the mentally ill.

So, by extension, it looks like Woods’ beef with Johnson is about guns and the mentally ill. She sides with Loesch in wanting no conversation about that topic.

I can’t figure out any other reason Woods would be mad at Johnson over his stance on guns, and she won’t return my call to settle the matter.

In a Facebook post last week, State Sen. Laura Woods referred to Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and his running mate as “gun grabbers.”

A Republican from Arvada/Westminster, Woods has made no secret of her hard stance against all gun safety laws, including her opposition to Colorado billls requiring mandatory criminal background checks on people purchasing guns.

She also opposes a Colorado law limiting the number of bullets a person can load into a gun at one time. Woods wants gun to be allowed to hold, for example, 100 bullets if the shooter wanted.

And on Woods’ website, she emphasizes her belief that all people should be allowed to openly carry a gun in public, without concealing it and without obtaining a permit. Woods’ website explains that she favors passing bills enacting this extreme pro-gun position, called “constitutional carry” legislation.

But the strange part is, Libertarian Johnson, whom Woods called a gun grabber, seems to be just about as far from a “gun grabber” as you could possibly imagine, having once told Slate Magazine, “I don’t believe there should be any restrictions when it comes to firearms. None.”

Johnson recently told USA TODAY he supports gun sales to suspected terrorists who can’t fly on airplanes because they’re on America’s terrorist watch list. And Johnson opposes a ban on automatic weapons.

Yet, Woods thinks Johnson is a gun grabber?

That’s a term used to describe someone who is believed to favor government confiscation of guns from ordinary citizens.

What could Johnson possibly say that would make him sufficiently opposed to basic gun safety to meet Woods’ standards for gun craziness?

Woods wants total-freedom-to-own-and-buy-guns, but so does Johnson, as you’d expect from a Libertarian, who sees these safety measures as an intrusion on privacy. Woods doesn’t return my calls, so I’ll leave it to another reporter to find out what she’s thinking.

Meanwhile, Woods’ views on guns will likely not fly so well in her Arvada/Westminster swing district, where she faces a challenge from Democrat Laura Zenzinger.

An overwhelming 80 percent of Coloradans support background checks for all gun purchases, and 60 percent support limits on the number of bullets allowed in a gun’s bullet holder, called a magazine, according to a Denver Post poll.

“I’m really disappointed in you, Senator. Promoting the lie that Gary Johnson is a gun grabber,” commented Stacy Petty, a former conservative talk-radio host in response to Woods’ Facebook post. “You need to check your facts before you post.”

But Woods holds to her extreme stance on guns, despite its apparent unpopularity, just as she stands behind her extreme position against abortion, even for a women who was raped.

“If you’ve looked at my voting record at all, what you will know is I’m an independent thinker,” Woods told Denver Post reporter John Frank in January.

“Republicans like Laura Woods see their party falling apart, and they are doing everything they can to trash anyone else who might potentially take away votes from whatever consevative base they might have,” said Hans Romer, the Libertarian candidate running against Woods and Zenzinger. “Laura Woods is playing politics.”

The outcome of Woods race against Zenzinger will likely determine control of state government, political analysts say, as Republicans hold a slim one-seat majority in the state senate. Democrats already control the governor’s office, and it’s likely they’ll retain control of the state house, after November’s election.

This post was updated with a comment from Romer.

If you look at the Colorado Right to Life website, you’ll see that Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Darryl Glenn is labled “pro-life.”

What does that mean, if you’re Colorado Right to Life? It means Glenn answered questions on seven “pro-life issues,” revealing his position “through specific language with no weasel-room.”

Colorado Right to Life states:

No candidate who supports abortion for any reason is “pro-life.” Regardless of what they may say, any truly pro-life citizen/candidate believes that government has an obligation to protect all human life from conception forward, and therefore pledge to oppose all abortion (with the understanding that a doctor may take action to save a woman’s life while also trying to save the baby’s life, even if the baby’s survival is doubtful due to other factors) – every innocent human being has an inalienable Right to Life at every age or stage of development.

But as the Durango Herald’s Peter Marcus reports today, Glenn appears to have described his abortion stance differently to different audiences.

Marcus quotes Glenn in an appearance on “Devil’s Advocate,” a television show sponsored by the conservative Independence Institute.

Glenn told Caldara: “As a person who has two adult daughters, I put myself in that situation. And I want to make sure that when we’re talking about health care, you want to make sure that women have the ability and access to health care, so that they understand all the different options that are out there. And at some point in time, maybe they might have to make that decision. But that is a personal decision that they have to make between them and… God.

Marcus’ report included a reaction to the Caldara interview from Colorado Right to Life:

“I’m willing to say on behalf of our organization that his comments were not nearly as strong as we would hope,” said Susan Sutherland, vice president of Colorado Right to Life. “He was just trying to play a little bit of political maneuvering there.”

Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner ran into a similar situation in 2014 when he defeated incumbent Democrat Mark Udall. To defeat Udall, Gardner walked more to the middle on the abortion issue, attempting to distance himself from personhood.

Glenn proudly leaned to the right during the primary, which helped propel the relatively unknown El Paso County commissioner to success in a crowded GOP field.

And, of course, before Gardner, there was 2010 Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, who, after the GOP primary, oops, took back his support for a personhood abortion ban  because, he said at the time, he didn’t understand the proposed amendment.

Like Buck, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman was cozy with the poor folks at Colorado Right to Life, before he jumped ship and took back his personhood support a couple years ago–though he’s never offered up much detail on why and how his position evolved on the issue.

I woudn’t be feeling very good if I were in the shoes of Colorado Right to Life, but we all agree that it’s better to have journalists expose the buckpedaling than leaving it buried in candidate questionnaires few people bother to read.

Last week, the Aurora Sentinel became the latest media outlet to point out that Rep. Mike Coffman’s spokeswoman told the Colorado Statesman in February that Coffman would “obviously” support Trump over Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

Coffman originally endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for the GOP presidential nomination and has not publicly endorsed Trump, though a Coffman campaign spokeswoman in February told the Colorado Statesman — when asked if the congressman would support the GOP nominee over Clinton or Bernie Sanders — that “the answer is obviously yes.”

Back in May, when Coffman shifted and stated he wasn’t sold on Trump, 9News political reporter Brandon Rittiman also referred to Coffman’s previous pledge to back the celebrity mogul over Hillary.

Both the Sentinel and 9News are doing the right thing not to let Coffman hide behind his spokesperson and then, later, to contradict what his spokesperson said.

Trouble is, reporters have yet to ask Coffman for an explanation. Why was his spokesperson so adamant that Coffman would back the GOP nominee?

And what’s changed about Trump since February, assuming that Coffman’s spokesperson wasn’t spreading misinformation about her boss?

Some have speculated that there were 11 GOP candidates in the race when Coffman promised to endorse the nominee. Does that mean he’d support all of the rest of them if they’d been selected as the nominee, but not necessarily Trump? Which ones might have Coffman rejected?

And since Coffman himself is backtracking on a previous pledge to support the GOP nominee (and now saying Trump has to “earn” his support) it’s also a completely legit question to ask what Coffman will do with his vote if he doesn’t give it to Donald.

In a parting jab at the Colorado delegates who tried to derail Trump’s nomination last week, Colorado Trump Campaign Director Patrick Davis called the group “insignificant going forward,” and he said as of last week, there is “no light between the Donald Trump Campaign and the Colorado Republican Party.”

“The small delegation that walked off the floor and became kind of ‘the story’ in Cleveland from Colorado, they’re just that, a small delegation,” Davis told KNUS 710-AM’s Peter Boyles Wednesday. “They are insignificant going forward. From this day forward, and frankly from last Friday, there has been no light between the Donald Trump campaign and the Colorado Republican Party.”

“If they’d had their way, we’d still be talking about rules,” said Davis later in the interview.

“Steve House, the Colorado Chairman, has been an early supporter of Donald Trump and has taken some of the heat for doing it, just like you [Peter Boyles],” he continued.

Boyles responded to Davis by saying he thought House opposed Trump in the early going.

Some state Republicans were up in arms in May about a blog post, picked up by Drudge, which included a quote from Steve House in which he appeared to oppose Trump.

House drew fire from the Trump Campaign in April for an anti-Trump  “We did it” tweet that was sent from the official state Twitter feed after Cruz won all the delegates at the state party convention.

House stated many times along the way that he was neutral in the GOP primary race here, and he went to Cleveland as an unbound delegate.

Just before the convention, before Trump had sealed up the delegates needed for the nomination, House appeared to tell a reporter he thought Trump would win the nominiation in the first round of voting even if he did not amass the magic number of 1,237 delegates before the convention.

Donald Trump will reach out to “all candidates who were with [Trump] early” Colorado Trump campaign director Patrick Davis told radio listeners Wednesday.

“It’s a brave thing to be a Trump supporter early in Colorado,” Davis told KNUS 710-AM’s Peter Boyles.

One of the first candidates in Colorado to support Trump was State Sen. Laura Woods (R-Westminster/Arvada), who in January called the mogul one of her two favorite presidential picks. She was the first elected official to express support for the celebrity politician.

Woods: “My favorites are Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.”

So, based on Davis’ interview, you’d expect the Trump campaign to be reaching out to Woods soon.

Asked by KNUS host Peter Boyles whether Trump would reach out specifically to George Athanasopoulos, who’s challenging U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, Davis said, “Trump and his people will reach out to all candidates like George, who were with him early.”

Athanasopoulos’ positions on a number of issues, as listed on his website, r eflect Trump’s to some degree.

On foreign policy, for example, he told me he differs from Trump in that “I would like to see specific objectives, like addressing the threat of ultra-orthodox Islamic terrorist groups.”

But some or the congressional candidate’s positions are even more unorthodox than Trump’s.

He once tweeted, for example, that a father has legal rights to stop an abortion because “that child is of him. It’s part of him.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Athanasopoulos tweeted from his “@gjanthus” Twitter handle, “but men are involved in conceiving children. Therefore, we have rights as fathers.”

Listen to Davis on KNUS July 27 here.