Republicans in Colorado’s sprawling 4th Congressional District late Thursday chose former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez as their nominee to appear on the June 25 special election ballot to fill out the rest of former Rep. Ken Buck’s term.
Lopez, 59, a conservative who ran unsuccessfully for Colorado governor in 2018 and 2022, has said publicly he won’t run in the district’s Republican primary election, which will be held on the same day. That leaves a field of 10 GOP candidates, including Rep. Lauren Boebert, vying to win that contest with the hopes of going on to the general election in November and taking office in January.
The scenario may benefit Boebert, who opted against running in the special election, because it means nobody in the primary will be able to claim the mantle of party support by also being the only Republican listed in the special-election race. She congratulated Lopez late Thursday night on X.
“Greg knows a lot of people from when he ran for office,” Tom Wiens, leader of the 4th District’s central committee, said Thursday night after several hours of voting had concluded. “He garnered a lot of goodwill from around the state. People knew him and trusted him.”
But the Colorado Democratic Party immediately attacked Lopez for a “troubling history with law enforcement, including pleading guilty to a charge of harassment after an incident of domestic violence.”
The party’s Friday news release also cited a federal civil case filed against Lopez in 2020, alleging that he used his connections as former district director of the Colorado office of the Small Business Administration to help a friend with a guaranteed loan a decade ago. Lopez later paid $15,000 as part of a settlement with then-U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn’s office.
“Mr. Lopez’s attempts to exert improper influence over a federal agency on behalf of his friend were serious violations of the rules for former federal officials,” Dunn said in a news release in October 2020.
Lopez, who lives in Elizabeth, did not return several requests for comment from The Denver Post on his nomination victory. But he told The Post in 2018 that he’d made mistakes and wasn’t perfect, also acknowledging at that time facing charges in a DUI incident. The domestic violence charge dates back to 1993.
“I’ve learned from my mistakes and I encourage people to recognize that,” he told The Post.
Lopez, a U.S. Air Force veteran, was 27 when he was first elected mayor of Parker in the 1990s, serving two terms. Originally a Democrat, he changed his party affiliation to Republican in 1994 and later ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate.
On Thursday night, Lopez received 51 votes from the district’s GOP vacancy committee while Logan County Commissioner Jerry Sonnenberg got 46 votes in the sixth and final round of voting. The process had started with nine men — including state Rep. Richard Holtorf, state Rep. Mike Lynch, businessman Peter Yu and former state lawmaker Ted Harvey — trying to get the nomination.
Boebert collected enough signatures to petition her way onto the June 25 primary ballot, as did conservative radio host Deborah Flora.
The 4th Congressional District vacancy committee met at the Lincoln County Event Center in Hugo. Democrats will hold their own nomination process for the special election Monday, although in such a heavily Republican district the Democratic nominee will have an uphill battle to defeat Lopez in June.
The special election was set in motion by Buck’s decision to leave Congress last week — nine months before his fifth term was to end. This month, Boebert blasted Buck for leaving early, saying that “forcing an unnecessary Special Election on the same day as the Primary Election will confuse voters, result in a lame duck Congressman on Day One, and leave the 4th District with no representation for more than three months.”
Gov. Jared Polis set the special election in the district on the same day as the primary, and voters will receive only one ballot to mark, with the special election appearing below the respective party primary on the ballot.
The 4th Congressional District, which covers the mostly rural eastern third of Colorado and takes in a portion of Denver’s southern suburbs in Douglas County, has become a focus of political watchers across the electoral landscape. The hubbub over the district started with Buck’s decision in November not to run for a sixth term, which prompted Boebert nearly two months later to switch from seeking reelection in her western Colorado district, where she faced a tough race against her Democratic opponent, to make a stab in the 4th.
The race was upended further when Buck decided he wouldn’t finish out his term. He stepped down March 22.
