O’Dea is a much more substantial figure than Durr was in 2021. O’Dea is the CEO of a construction firm that employs more than 300 Coloradans. He won a spirited GOP primary with 54.5 percent of the vote – even though some Democratic PACs spent money trying to nominate his opponent, who they thought would be easier to beat in the general.

On primary election night, O’Dea said he would represent Colorado and the country, not a political party. “The Colorado Senate race is a referendum on Joe Biden’s policies and Michael Bennet’s rubber stamp,” he said. “I will work with reasonable people on both sides. No political party will control me.” Importantly, O’Dea defined himself as a construction CEO – not a politician or a partisan.

O’Dea is helped by the clear contrast with Bennet. For starters, O’Dea is a fourth-generation Coloradan, while Bennet, moved to Colorado in 1997 after being born in India and raised in Washington, D.C.

To demonstrate how out-of-touch Bennet is with Colorado, he got a one-day fishing license to film an ad depicting him as outdoorsman. Few Coloradans, an extraordinarily outdoor-focused people, are going to think a one-day fishing license demonstrates a serious commitment to fishing, the outdoors, or conservation. It just made Bennet look like a phony easterner pretending to be a Coloradan.