POLIS vs STAPLETON FOR GOVERNOR: Individual wealth is about all they have in common

Colorado Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Polis is banking on his wealth, entrepreneurial experience and anti-Donald Trump sentiment as he seeks to win over independents in his quest to succeed term-limited centrist Democrat Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Republicans are seeking to capture a Colorado governor’s seat they haven’t held since 2007 to go with their control of the state Senate, a 4-3 edge in its congressional delegation and the statewide offices of treasurer, attorney general and secretary of state posts. Democrats are banking on an anti-Trump “blue wave” to flip the Senate and consolidate control of the statehouse.

Under Hickenlooper, Colorado has one of the nation’s lowest unemployment rates and highest rates of economic growth, largely fueled by the tech, aerospace and oil and gas industries. Stapleton insists Colorado owes its prosperity to conservative fiscal policy.

Polis, a tech and education entrepreneur, aims to become Colorado’s first openly gay governor. The five-term congressman has poured roughly $20 million into his campaign. A former member of the state school board, Polis, 43, was elected to represent Colorado’s northern 2nd Congressional District in 2008.

Stapleton, a 44-year-old former investment banker, has served two terms as Colorado treasurer.

Both candidates emerged from crowded primary races, with Polis, who was born in Boulder but spent much of his childhood in southern California, beating out former State Treasurer Cary Kennedy, current Lieutenant Governor Donna Lynne and former state Senator Mike Johnston. U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter ran briefly before dropping out of the race last summer.

Stapleton, who was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in southern Connecticut, easily fended off primary challenges from businessmen and former politicos Greg Lopez, Victor Mitchell and Doug Robinson. Higher-profile Colorado Republicans, including former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo and George Brauchler, current district attorney for the 18th Judicial District, withdrew from the race earlier this year and late last year, respectively. In a surprise upset, Current Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman was eliminated from the contest at the party convention earlier this spring.

Jared Polis Campaign Website

Walker Stapleton Campaign Website

The head of the state government, the governor’s office has the ability to grant pardons, sign and veto bills that come out of the state Legislature, convene the state congress as needed, and commands the Colorado National Guard. The Colorado governor earns about $90,000, which is one of the lowest salaries among all governors in the U.S., according to the Council of State Governments.

Polis is running alongside former state representative Dianne Primavera, while Stapleton recruited current state Rep. Lang Sias (R-Arvada) to be his potential lieutenant governor.

In recent debates, Stapleton attempted to paint nearly all of Polis’ views and plans as “radical and extreme,” while Polis suggested many of Stapleton’s proposed policies are scant on details.

Polis and Stapleton have both called on the Colorado Department of Transportation and the state Legislature to repair the state’s “crumbling infrastructure.” Stapleton has pointed to a potential tax on legalized sports gambling — which is currently largely illegal under state law — in the state to finance additional transportation projects. Polis has repeatedly pointed to funding additional studies on bike, rail and bus routes in the state to better leverage alternative transportation options.

Polis currently serves on the House Committee on Rules, the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the Committee on Ethics and the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, according to his congressional webpage.

On environmental issues, both candidates have agreed to work with the state’s growing oil and gas industry to varying degrees. Polis has said his experience with the industry in his northern Congressional District leaves him poised to negotiate with oil and gas heavyweights. Polis has also pledged to get the state to run entirely off of renewable resources by 2040. Stapleton has pledged to maintain a friendly business environment for oil and gas Colorado, and vowed to retain the thousands of jobs the industry brings to the state. Both candidates have voiced their opposition to Initiative 97, which calls for greatly expanding the setback distance for oil and gas drilling in Colorado.

At a recent debate organized by CBS4, Polis and Stapleton both said they would study and re-evaluate the stay of execution imposed several years ago by current Gov. John Hickenlooper in the Nathan Dunlap case. Stapleton suggested he would not impede the sentence originally imposed by the courts more than 20 years ago.

“I don’t think it’s the job of the governor to re-adjudicate a decision that’s already gone through the legal process,” Stapleton said of the decision regarding Dunlap, who shot and killed four people at a Chuck E. Cheese in Aurora in 1993. “And I wouldn’t lift the stay immediately, but I would have a review process over a period of time to make sure that what a judge and jury decided was not changed or re-ajudicated by a sitting governor.”

The two candidates share common ground on some immigration policy, with the Democrat and the Republican both supporting “dreamers” and shunning so-called “sanctuary” status for the state. The term “dreamer” refers to people enrolled in the DACA program, which grants temporary residency status to young people who were illegally brought to the United States as children. A legally ambiguous term, so-called “sanctuary” cities and states refer to jurisdictions that supposedly harbor, or neglect to prosecute illegal immigrants. Aurora has repeatedly been deemed a so-called sanctuary city, despite the city council passing a resolution last year to formally distance itself from the amorphous moniker.

The financial backgrounds of both candidates has been a sticking point throughout the race, as both Stapleton and Polis have shirked Colorado tradition and neglected to disclose their recent tax returns to the public.

Stapleton and Polis both made significant money in the private sector prior to being elected to public office. Polis rode the internet boom to a massive payday in the late 1990s thanks to his development of an electronic greeting card company, while Stapleton served as an investment banking executive for several years prior to getting elected to public office in 2010.

The two candidates have refused to specify their exact net worth, although they each have donated at least $1 million to their own campaigns.

The Stapleton campaign has netted about $3.2 million and spent about $2.3 million so far, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. Stapleton has donated more than $1 million of his own money to his campaign, according to campaign finance filings.

Polis’ campaign has brought in about $20.1 million and spent all but about $1 million of that total. Polis has poured about $19 million of his own money into his campaign.

Nearly $40 million has been raised in this year’s race for governor, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. That total is roughly four times the amount raised in the governor’s race four years ago.

Both Stapleton and Polis have trumpeted their use of so-called blind trusts, or accounts operated by third parties in an attempt to prevent the appearance of impropriety as elected officials. But the amount of knowledge each candidate has about their respective trusts has been repeatedly called into question throughout the campaign.

The true value of the assets each candidate keeps in the trusts remains unknown.

Aside from Polis and Stapleton, there are several other candidates running unattached, or affiliated with various minor parties in the race for governor. Lawyer Scott Helker is running on the Libertarian ticket, Bill Hammons is representing the Unity Party and the Green Party candidate dropped out of the race.

— Associated Press reporter Jim Anderson contributed to this story