For weeks, I've been saying we're in the final stretch leading up to the primary election day here in Colorado.

Well, here we are.

If you haven't turned in your ballot yet, it is now too late to put it in the mail.

Instead, you have until 7:00 Tuesday night to drop it in.

And one of Colorado's 437 secure ballot drop boxes.

Or vote in person at a voting center in your county.

Those behind me have a whole lot to say about what the results in the coming days may reveal about Colorado's voters, our political parties, and the direction of our state.

But we're also taking time to reflect the loss of an esteemed Colorado journalist who was a regular around this table for many years.

This week, we pay tribute to Lynn Bartels.

We have a lot to get to.

So let's get started.

But this week's Colorado Inside Out.

Hi, everyone, I'm Kyle Dyer.

Let me get right to introducing you to this week's insider panel.

We start with Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword.

Eric Schneiderman, columnist with Colorado Politics and the Colorado Springs and Denver Gazette.

David Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute.

And Elena Alvarez, reporter with Axios.

Denver.

With just days to go before the primary election day.

We have seen polling questions about experience and electability, and candidates taking aim at each other's integrity and honesty in debates and podcasts, social media posts and mailers galore.

So as Colorado voters make their final decisions.

Where do the candidates stand and what do these races tell us about where the party stand right now?

Patti, I'll start with you.

Well, let's see, we have 10% of the registered voters had voted by, I guess, Wednesday.

And so we'll see if the ranks really increase.

Since then, we need to have more people vote.

The unaffiliated are breaking Democrat.

We don't know kind of how that will go.

Will that push wise or will it push Bennet the Republican Party remains the big mystery here, which is Victor Marks is still allegedly polling ahead, which is crazy.

I mean, you have a real public servant in Barb, Kirk Meyers, someone who would give really good debates with a Democrat who whoever gets out of the primary would really elevate the conversation.

So unaffiliated voters, if you haven't gone to the polls yet and I've said this before, you know, register for Republicans, give the Colorado Republican Party something to be proud of, like a candidate who's not crazy.

Okay.

Eric, what you what do you say?

Oh, lots of ground.

Try to do it quickly.

The governor's race, particularly on the Democratic side, is certainly the headline, the signature race of this campaign.

When Bennett got into the race, all the supposition was that, you know, he was an overwhelming favorite.

There's nothing overwhelming about him being a favorite at this point.

And I think this is a very competitive, very close race.

I think the two most interesting races may end up being congressional District one and Congressional District eight.

We saw what happened in New York City earlier this week with the Democratic Socialists of America and their allied candidates winning three races.

Denver is not New York City, to be sure, but there is a wave out there within the Democratic Party.

I consider it somewhat comparable to what Republicans did like a dozen or more years ago, 15 years ago, with the Tea Party movement.

That was the precursor to Trump.

There is this wave of going to the party's polar extreme and that wave and, you know, may wash over Denver, may wash over the northern suburbs of Denver in the eighth district.

But, you know, sometimes Colorado doesn't follow the national trend.

So we kind of do our own thing.

So it'll be really.

Interesting at all.

Politics.

These days.

I mean, what you say is obviously right, but all politics has become nationalized these days.

We're not running on local issues.

Everyone, no matter where you are in the country, runs on national issues.

It all revolves around Trump.

And so I do think national trends matter more.

if you watch TV other than, of course, noncommercial public television, you have been inundated with Wiser and Bennett commercials.

And the good news is they're all lies.

First of all, neither wiser nor Bennett running for governor is going to do much to fight Trump.

If Bennett wanted to fight Trump, he ought to stay in Washington, D.C., in the U.S.

Senate, which is where Trump is over in D.C.

in CD1 with longtime incumbent Representative Diana DeGette.

There's a poll out that shows her unqualified no name challenger actually ahead by five points.

It's from a reputable left wing polling firm, but notably was released on a left leftist propaganda website where they didn't ask the pollster, oh, can you give us any like, how many people did you sample?

What's your margin of error?

Even those very basic things aren't disclosed in the poll, which provides some reason to be suspicious.

And then in the eighth Congressional District, where there's a primary, you again have a very competent republic, a Democratic state legislator, highly respected by her peers.

Shannon Bird, who was on the Joint Budget Committee, which is like the high honors class of the legislature, versus Maddie Brudenell, whose big argument of why vote for me is, oh, I'm Hispanic and trying to follow his positions on the issues.

It's like watching a raven during a dark night wind storm.

You can't tell.

There's no consistency.

He's a complete phony baloney.

Phony baloney.

Okay, Elena.

This is hard to follow.

I'm watching whether we could see a socialist shake up in Colorado.

It's a huge storyline.

We did a story this week about progressive candidates here feeling increasingly confident after the socialist, sweep that, Eric mentioned in New York City.

Those candidates include Amanda Gonzalez, who's running for secretary of state, Julie Gonzalez, running for U.S.

Senate.

And we like chaos here.

You're hearing increasingly about challenging Diana to get in the first Congressional District and who was notably recently endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders.

They're also feeling further embodied when you look at other races.

So in DC, earlier this month in the mayoral race, a, democratic socialist won the Democratic primary and barring any major surprises, will be the next mayor of DC.

So we're clearly seeing that socialism and some parts of the country is really growing in popularity.

These new challengers, they're being fueled by young urban voters who are tired of the status quo.

And this is really shaking up the party.

And so with to get, this is certainly the most serious primary challenge she's faced in years.

And whether or not she keeps her seat, the bottom line is that this is a real warning sign for establishment Democrats across the country.

Right.

I was going to say the one thing that may save her is that Wanda James was a really interesting candidate.

I don't know if she really would have been the one who could give of to get a run for her money if she was the only other candidate, but she could be the spoiler who takes it away from us and to get wins.

Okay.

Let's turn to money now.

Some of these races are getting significant donations for a primary season with outside spending targeting competitive seats.

We're seeing money flow both to defend incumbents and also to challenge them.

Is this just the new normal in Colorado politics, Eric, where outside money is increasingly getting involved and and are voters even noticing it?

And we see I guess it's funny a lot of commercials, but are they aware of how much money is coming in from outside the state?

I don't know that voters, average voters, tune in that much to the source of money.

I wish it was otherwise, but I'm not, sure it is.

you know, to get now has apparently, source of independent funding trying to put a stop to this.

The Milwaukee move.

I agree with Patty's comment earlier, in terms of Wanda James maybe being the only thing that saves to get a seat, I actually think in a one on one race between Milwaukee Heroes and I'm not a fan of hers, but a one on one race between two heroes and they get to get probably loses.

I got to believe that, Wanda James, even on a bad day, is good for nine, ten, 12 points, something like that.

And that may be what gets to get over the finish line.

The get has had so many dying to get us, had so many opportunities.

And I've written columns about this to retire with grace.

After, extended probably past her sell by kind of career and she may get retired with lack of grace here.

It is not impossible that materials pulls this off even with a third candidate in the race.

Well, I mean, they are right about that.

And if you're on the other side of the political fence, a Republican, you'd want that because Diana DeGette accomplishes things in Congress.

She's a leader.

She gets bills passed.

And cross won't cross will be more like Lauren Lauren Boebert, but even more so high publicity.

Always getting her name in the paper, saying outrageous things but accomplishing very little.

Likewise, the possibility of the Janet Griswold, our incompetent, publicity hounds Secretary of state, might become the Colorado Attorney General's office is great news if you're a Republican lawyer suing the state, the competent, decent people are going to flee the attorney general's office.

So when the state gets sued and she has to defend the government's laws, it'll be a lot easier for the challengers, because they won't have that, because the good lawyers will be, long gone.

Okay.

Elena.

I want to zoom in on Manny Root now.

He is running in Colorado's ultra competitive a, district in the Democratic primary.

My colleague John Frank just wrote a really interesting story about how AI exacts are pouring millions of dollars to support him.

He's he's one of the tech industry's top funded candidates, literally in the top three.

And the spending appears to be tied to his support of AI regulation, which seems maybe counterintuitive, but the backdrop is that a lot of major AI companies are now shifting from wanting no regulation at all to wanting more of a federal unified policy, which means they won't have to navigate all of these patchwork rules state by state.

And so Colorado's race might be one place where we're seeing that debate sort of play out.

But I think ultimately, this Mary Manny Root and all races is a prime example of how congressional races are increasingly becoming these battlegrounds for Billion-Dollar industries instead of just focused on local issues.

And padding.

The amount of money that has gone into this campaign is so depressing.

I mean, you were talking about the commercials with Weezer and Bennett.

The commercials are horrible.

They don't tell you anything, anything true.

They don't really push the candidates at all.

But the amount of money that is going into them, the amount of money that's going into the ET, the amount of money that's being spent.

And I don't think the money is really going to wind up shaking things up.

I think it's much more the wave that if we see the socialist wave from New York hitting here, that's not going to be because of money.

That's just going to be people are tired of the same increasingly old faces, but they're tired of the same same.

So I think we're going to see a lot of changes.

But the I think what we could have done with that money in this state, the state that is so broke.

Yet Jesse Paul, our colleague at The Sun, reported this week that the Colorado GOP just brought in $3,000 last month.

That's all in donations.

Yet they're having a big fest this weekend.

Well, it's not really the party's fest.

It's it's it's it's put on by Jeff Hunt who used to run the Centennial Institute.

It had, Colorado Christian University and that this is part of the general trend that the parties themselves are really being hollowed out, and they're just nominal placeholders.

You know, the Democratic Socialists of America, as they call themselves.

They're not Democrats.

They're just they're they're engaging in a hostile takeover of the party.

But the Democratic Party has by the quirks of our election laws, easy ballot access.

same thing on the Republican side.

It's the money is being raised by, you know, the Trump machine or other groups that are good at mobilizing people.

And the parties just exist as this kind of facade, under which the the outsiders operate.

And my only question about the $3,000 is seems like a lot of money to donate to that party.

Where did they find suckers to donate $3,000, to your money question.

Just, you know, one sentence, money is TV is having a declining influence.

TV is a declining medium, particularly the advertising side of it.

And yet people continue to invest invest in it because they haven't found a viable alternative.

Yeah.

Okay.

Before we leave the topic of this primary election, I'm curious.

Lightning round for all of you, what do you predict?

What do you predict?

What do you think will be the big headline on Wednesday morning?

What's the big loss for big win?

I'll start with you.

Fun as it would be to report on a continuing Victor Mark's candidacy.

I'm going with Barb.

Barb Park are pulling it out.

Okay, Eric.

I think as I said, Democratic race for governor is the headline race.

I think that will be the headline.

I think we're living in a season of upsets.

The avalanche getting beat was an upset.

The Knicks winning was an upset.

I'm calling the upset here.

I think Phil Wiser, does pull this out.

It is an anti-establishment mood out there.

And deservedly or not, Bennett represents the establishment.

Okay, David.

Barber, Kirk Meyer wins the Republican nomination for governor.

Because so far, I haven't seen a lot of evidence of Republicans, buying suicide pills or drinking poison laced Kool-Aid, which would be the equivalent of putting Victor Marx.

That ridiculous fat fictional character on the on their ballot.

David.

Wow.

You had your Wheaties this morning, Elaina.

What's your prediction?

I'm going to go out on a really big limb here and say whoever wins the Democratic primary for governor will be Colorado's next governor.

Now, late, you know?

Yeah.

You heard of your prayers.

We'll give you some slack.

You just got back from maternity leave.

All right.

There has been a significant development in a case that has, raised serious questions about forensic work, past forensic work here in Colorado.

Missy woods, a former forensic scientist with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, has pleaded guilty to four felony counts tied to the mishandling of DNA evidence in criminal cases.

She was originally facing 102 felonies.

The other 90.

Whatever it is.

Eight thank you for the math.

Of the 98.

Felony charges have now been dropped as part of this plea deal.

So, David, since you're our resident attorney here at the desk, please start us off on your well on this.

The plea deal sets up the judge to impose, assuming it's accepted, a sentence of between 8 and 16 years.

And, of course, people typically don't serve the full sentence.

A lot of people are going to be arguing that the judge should certainly go for the very maximum end of the sentencing range, because this was her criminal misconduct went on for years and years and years, and it intersected at least a thousand cases.

This was not errors of judgment at one time.

This was pervasive or organized crime, really, that she was, perpetrating.

It was a huge failure by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which had warnings.

In 2014, a coworker questioned her testing of evidence.

But then the technical supervisor never really followed up on it.

There were accusations of data manipulation back in 2015 and then more in 2018, which led to her being suspended.

But then they brought her back because apparently you can never fire anyone, in the Colorado state government.

And then finally, in 2023, an intern who was doing a research project found data anomalies in in her stuff.

And that's what finally led to this whole thing unraveling.

In response, the Colorado Bureau investigation has done a good job.

They brought in the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to help audit and evaluate things.

They've reviewed over a thousand cases that she might have contaminated, and they are phasing in many dozens of recommendations to improve, procedures and, quality checks and balances in there.

And also, fortunately, the legislature in 2025 enacted a mandatory reporting law for CBI employees that if you see something, you must say something.

Yeah.

Elena, she had just back in February said she was not guilty of all charges.

So she just made this decision to change your plea.

Right.

Quite the 180.

And I think will be, you know, helpful in healing for all of the families that this has affected over 1000 cases.

As David said, this is so costly in so many ways.

Of course, I just mentioned the emotional damage that this caused to families.

Then you have the actual monetary costs.

I saw in the Denver Post that the state expects to spend at least $11 million to try to fix some of the the wrongs that she did.

It's also been costly to CBI's trustworthiness, its integrity.

I think a lot of the public doesn't trust what they're going to do anymore.

The big stain on their reputation and our court system has been strained for a long time.

So the resources that this is going to take, there's already numerous post-conviction challenges underway because of this.

And that's just the start.

So just a huge, huge cost for state.

I want to take a moment to revisit what David said, though, that this came to light thanks to an intern.

I just the the courage that took to stand up.

And we would have never known how that had that intern not done that.

I just think that's amazing.

Yeah.

Patty.

Well, CBI has to be pretty happy that all their dirty laundry will not be aired in an open courtroom now, although there are.

And maybe that will help their position with all the people who will wind up suing the CBI and various officials who could have blown the whistle earlier.

But we've remember it's the cost in actual money to the state, the cost and the lives for the people who were convicted on her false testimony testimony, her falsified test results.

And we are still seeing it now.

Rape kits are so behind the testing of rape kits in Colorado that there is no justice for the women involved in those cases.

So it's outrageous and it seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.

Eric.

Yeah, I think it is a very favorable deal.

And she had a run, not walk, to take that deal, which she obviously has.

My three colleagues here have hit it.

Well, I think the ripple effect of what she did is, as they've all discussed, the downstream effects are just immense.

And as Elena put it, the the human effects and the human consequences of this, the part that fascinates me and that I really haven't seen much coverage of is what was her motive, what was in her head?

Why did this unfold as it did?

She seemingly when she was hired, was a, you know, competent, reasonably dedicated professional.

Obviously something went off the rails.

And I wish we had a better sense of why it went off the rails.

I don't know if we'll ever get that.

Okay.

Our state and more specifically our journalistic and political community here in Colorado has lost someone very special.

Lynn Bartels Lynn was a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post.

She served as communications director for the Secretary of State's office, and was also a regular at this table in Colorado, inside out for many years.

Lynn was on this show before I joined and also before you as well, Elena.

But I understand she kind of took you under her wing a bit when you moved to Colorado to work with Axios Denver.

She did.

She did it as I moved in 2019 to Denver.

I was at Colorado politics, actually, I think it was my first or second week.

She, out of the goodness of her heart, said, hey, I want to take you to a community event.

There's a lot of movers and shakers here.

It was on a weekend, so she didn't have to do this whatsoever, wasn't even a workday.

And she took me around, introduced me to so many people, including John Hickenlooper, and it was just so that I could hit the ground running, have some sources to talk to, and that that was it.

That was the kind of person Lynn was, though she cared so much.

She cared so much about journalism.

And she, she took pride in and mentoring, you know, the next generation.

And I'm so grateful for that memory and for other memories that I have.

But when she was a really special person, that's awesome.

Patty.

And thoughts?

Well, I was honored to sometimes be mistaken for Lynn because so smart, such a great writer.

And I talked before how she described covering politics.

She covered it like sports, and she was the ultimate umpire.

Fair, she called it as she thought, but you really she she knew the game and she was just a great reporter loss to all of us.

And Eric.

She was a great reporter.

I love the story that, Elena told, which points out not only what she was a great reporter.

She was a great person.

She was very much her own person.

She wrote her own rules in terms of how she crafted and lived her life.

The outpouring of testimonials during her illness, which was mercifully brief and now, since she's passed away, is quite something.

The one that I think superseded all others.

There's a leading Republican consultant in town by name, Kelly Maher, and I did not realize the closeness between Kelly and Lynn.

People should go online.

Viewers should go online and read Kelly Maher's, ode or testimonial to Lynn.

I think it's available on Complete Colorado as well as other places.

It was beautifully done.

My favorite memories of Lynn are not the professional side.

It's much more the personal side.

It's the random phone call.

It's the random text with an inside a tip, a barb, a joke.

It's all the personal touch.

Okay?

And David.

She was such a great journalist and whatever she did, she's before Colorado.

She was a city columnist for the Albuquerque Journal and very funny.

And cynical.

And then she came to the Rocky Mountain News in 1993, starting off on the night shift and the crime beat.

And then from there, she transitioned to politics, which was her things she's now famous for.

But all across all that coverage and sitting around the table here before the show when we'd be chatting, she was always the same very forthright person.

She was cynical, hopeful, funny, tough and fair.

And she really did have a heart of gold.

All right.

All right.

Thank you for sharing, everybody.

Now let's go around the table and talk about some of the highs and the lows we all witnessed this week.

Patty, I'll start with you on a low note.

Well, you could certainly hear Lynn Bartels laughing when the Jenna Griswold outhouse story broke.

When Lynn was working for Wayne Williams, she did not love Jenna Griswold, who beat Wayne Williams in the election for Secretary of State.

But she Jenna has falsified things before, like testifying, I mean, prosecuted, speaking before the Supreme Court.

Yeah, but that she said she grew up with an outhouse when she was living up in Estes Park.

And in fact, one David Blake, a reporter, went out and figured out that actually that house had a septic system.

So there was indoor plumbing too.

Another candidate here, Milwaukee Heroes, who is running this very competitive race in Congressional District one, Denver against Diana DeGette.

There's a fine line these days between anti-Semitism and being anti-Israel, particularly anti current Israeli policy.

But in the case of Miss Chiaro, she has not only bumped up against that line, she has crossed way over that line.

Yes, you can be a critic of Israel, but she has taken it into grounds that are inarguably in my estimation, anti-Semitic.

Shame on her.

It is hard to envision her representing Denver, including a robust Jewish community and a whole lot of other people who care.

Okay.

All right.

David.

Well.

You know, for our next point, the problem is a lot of the people who, whose main identity is about hating Israel also hate the United States.

And a lot Kairos was, scheduled a campaign appearance with this guy, Hassan Piker, who's a very big celebrity among the America hating left.

And he said America deserved 911.

So it's not just about whether you want Israel to be bombed, it's whether you think al Qaeda was right.

And if you're on that side rather than on the American side.

Right.

Elena.

Right.

This is a personal one.

I have a no soliciting sign on my door, and I am getting bombarded by campaigners ringing my doorbell, making my dogs go berserk, and waking up my baby.

And I'm about to hit it.

So I'm really ready for campaign season to end.

Yes.

Okay.

Something good.

Patty Denver Pride this weekend.

It's going to be downtown, all along 16th because Civic Center Park's under construction.

But it should be quite the festivities on Sunday.

And the parade will be along on 17th.

Okay.

All right.

Great to have Elena back at the table.

Beyond that, I'm not a fan of FIFA as an organization, totally corrupt organization, but I am a fan of the World Cup, and it's just it's been fun.

And now it's only really getting to the serious stage.

It's so fun, isn't it?

Yeah.

Well.

And how wonderful it is for Europeans and people from other countries to actually come to the United States, not just go to DC or New York City, but to see the interior of the country and what a wonderful country it is.

And it seems like they're having a great time.

All right.

And, Elena.

The home that Wellington Webb and Wilmer Webb live in was deemed by the city a, local landmark.

And considering what titans they are in Denver and Colorado more broadly, I thought that was really cool.

That is great.

Well, my heart the week is that Elena is back from maternity leave after spending some great time with baby Cyrus.

I just love the name.

I'm also really glad to be back at the table with all of you as we head into a really pivotal week for our state.

A big thank you to the team here and to Krista Kafer for stepping in for me last week so that I could head to Washington, DC to help my 23 year old daughter through her tonsillectomy.

It was tough.

It was difficult, but she is super tough and we got through it with a lot of soft serve.

But I am very glad to be back here.

Thanks, insiders, for joining us.

Thank you for watching or listening to our podcast.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

I will see you next week here on PBS 12.

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