Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican challenger Joe O’Dea clashed repeatedly of their last debate Friday over inflation, abortion and Bennet’s effectiveness throughout his 13 years in Congress.
O’Dea hammered Bennet for voting with President Joe Biden 98% of the time, blaming him for a spending spree that prompted inflation and failing to safe the U.S. border with Mexico. But it surely was his use of a deceptive statistic, that Bennet has solely handed one invoice in his 13 years within the Senate, that set off the usually soft-spoken Democratic senator.
“You are a liar, Joe,” Bennet snapped.
O’Dea was referring to a lone standalone invoice that Bennet authored, however that cost is wildly deceptive as a result of most senators, Bennet included, see the overwhelming majority of the payments they write move as a part of bigger packages. Bennet has had quite a few measures move that approach, together with — he famous — billions of {dollars} in wildfire and drought prevention and, in a separate measure, funding for rural areas to spice up web entry.
O’Dea, a businessman and first-time candidate, stored repeating the deceptive statistic, utilizing it to cost the customarily academic-sound Bennet with incompetence. “Michael Bennet doesn’t get outcomes,” he stated repeatedly.
The talk within the northern Colorado metropolis of Ft. Collins was the one full one aired on tv as O’Dea tries to exhibit a approach for the GOP to win a state shifting towards Democrats. Former President Donald Trump misplaced Colorado by 13 proportion factors in 2020.
O’Dea kicked off a feud with the previous president — for whom he voted twice — by saying earlier this month that he’d help one other candidate within the 2024 GOP presidential major. Trump known as O’Dea a “RINO” — a Republican In Title Solely.
Nonetheless, Bennet stored tying O’Dea to Trump, repeatedly reminding his viewers that his rival had voted twice earlier than for the ex-president. “He voted for Donald Trump twice, after the kids have been separated from their moms on the border,” Bennet stated of O’Dea as he listed quite a few controversies from the previous president.
O’Dea has tried to focus the marketing campaign on crime and inflation, which led to his sharpest assault on Bennet when he requested the Democratic senator concerning the $5 trillion in current federal spending: “Do you remorse the spending?”
“I remorse the inflation that individuals are dealing with,” Bennet replied, including that it was attributable to “damaged provide chains globally” and power points.
Bennet went on the assault on abortion, regardless that O’Dea is the uncommon Republican who backs abortion rights — no less than by means of 20 weeks of being pregnant, after which he thinks the process ought to be banned. Bennet famous that solely about 1% of abortions come after that date, all, he stated, heartbreaking instances with a late-arriving well being situation.
The senator described “the truth of ladies having the worst expertise of their life, the very last thing they want is to have Joe O’Dea in there with them.”
O’Dea reiterated his help for abortion rights as much as 5 months of being pregnant. “Michael Bennet has voted for abortion up-to-the-minute of delivery.,” O’Dea stated. “I believe that’s excessive.”
In response to a query about when he is disagreed with Biden, Bennet listed a few of his objections to the president’s insurance policies, together with Biden’s scholar debt forgiveness plan, his journey to Saudi Arabia earlier this 12 months and lifting a pandemic-related restriction on immigrants looking for asylum on the southern border. O’Dea was requested about what priorities of the highest Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, he may block. He stated he didn’t assume any extra of former President Barack Obama’s well being care regulation wanted to be repealed.
Although nationwide Republicans have admired O’Dea’s try to preserve the race away from social points, they haven’t invested a lot cash in serving to his marketing campaign, an indication of the robust hill O’Dea has to climb so as to unseat Bennet.
Colorado Republicans haven’t gained a top-tier race within the state since 2014, when Cory Gardner ousted Democratic Sen. Mark Udall. However Gardner was kicked out of workplace by the state’s voters in 2020, and he was the one top-of-the-ticket statewide Republican winner since 2004.