State Senator Mark Baisley and County Commissioner Sean Pond join list of MAGA extremists running to flip Colorado’s Senate seat
In case you missed it, conservative state Senator Mark Baisley and Montrose County Commissioner Sean Pond recently unveiled their campaigns to challenge John Hickenlooper in his 2026 reelection. They join former state Representative Janak Joshi and retired Colonel George Markert as extreme MAGA candidates fighting to bring a “red wave” to Colorado and flip Colorado’s Senate seat to greenlight Trump’s reckless agenda.
Baisley, a current state Senator, announced that he would drop out of the governor’s race to challenge Hickenlooper and is working to secure major funding from national Republican groups to bring a “red wave” to Colorado. Like his Republican opponents, Baisley is too extreme for Colorado and previously said being gay is a “rebellion against nature.”
Pond is a new Republican Commissioner for Montrose County who has fought efforts to protect public lands, such as Hickenlooper and Bennet’s ambitious bipartisan GORP Act, and called on President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi to invalidate Colorado laws that he disagrees with.
Joshi, a former state representative from Colorado Springs and a physician whose medical license was suspended for “unprofessional conduct,” promised to make supporting Trump’s MAGA agenda his top priority. Markert said he would have voted for the Washington Republicans’ disastrous budget bill and proudly touts his endorsement from another extreme Republican who claims to be “Trump before Trump was cool.”
While the Republicans campaign to prove who would be more loyal to Trump, Hickenlooper is standing up to protect Colorado from the President’s vengeful attacks on Colorado and is working to actually lower prices. He is fighting the Trump admin’s effort to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder and working to overturn Trump’s veto of his bill to help deliver clean water for thousands of Coloradans.
He is also pushing back against Trump’s reckless tariffs and fighting to reverse Washington Republicans’ disastrous budget bill that will kick 15 million Americans off their health insurance – including 241,000 Coloradans – and raise health care costs. He was one of the first Senate Democrats to announce he would vote against the Republicans’ so-called Continuing Resolution unless Republicans negotiated with Democrats to lower health care costs, support rural hospitals, and end Trump’s tariffs.
Read more below:
Colorado Times Recorder: Baisley Drops Out of GOP Primary for CO Gov, Switches to U.S. Senate
