I never intended to run for office

I’ll be honest, folks. I never would have guessed that I’d have the honor to serve in the U.S. Senate.

This is a longer Substack about my story and how I ended up in Washington representing hardworking Coloradans and protecting them from Trump’s attacks. If you have a few minutes, I hope you’ll read it until the end.

Back in the mid-1980s, I was a geologist — until I wasn’t. Our company got sold and we all got laid off. I used part of my severance to buy an old Chevy convertible, and drove to visit my brother in Berkeley, CA. He showed me one of the first brewpubs in America and I loved it. I came back to Denver and took a gamble, risking every scrap of my savings in opening the Wynkoop Brewing Company in downtown Denver.

I remember working 80-hour weeks. I remember lying awake at night, wondering how we were going to make it. And I remember being so frustrated that our government was focusing more on decisions that’d help politicians get reelected rather than helping solve our problems.

So I ran for Mayor. To everyone’s surprise, especially mine, I won in a landslide. From then on, I focused every day on making decisions based on what was best for Denver.

I then became the first Denver Mayor in 120 years to be elected Governor, on the premise of uniting people and getting things done. We expanded health care to half a million people and created the first methane regulations in any state or country in the world.

And after we flipped Colorado’s Senate seat in 2020, we worked to deliver real change for Coloradans. We invested billions of dollars to confront the climate crisis, lowered prescription drug costs, made investments to rebuild our infrastructure, and brought thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs back to America.

Now, we’re in the fight of our lives as Trump’s extreme agenda threatens to undo all that work. We refused to let him auction off our public lands or use your tax dollars to give handouts to felons like Tina Peters.

But look, I’ve also seen how broken Washington is – and how Trump has unleashed corruption like a pandemic. I see politicians who only listen to those who cut big campaign checks while ignoring families trying to afford health care. I’ve seen how Trump operates: money comes in, favors go out.

Here’s why I’m telling you this: what drives our work is the people of Colorado.

The families who are struggling to maintain their health insurance after Trump gutted the Affordable Care Act to give tax cuts to his friends in the Epstein class. The workers who are working full time and still need a second job to afford their rent. The kids who are studying science and are already worried that the funding for their research will never come back.

As I said, I never thought I’d find myself in the U.S. Senate, but I’m running for re-election because it’s been the honor of a life-time to fight for you. And, too much is at stake to stop now.

If you’ve made it to the end of my post, I have a special ask for you. I don’t take money from corporate PACs like your typical politician. Instead, I rely on grassroots folks like you. Your contribution today, even just $5 or $10, will help us meet our end-of-quarter fundraising goal and goes a long way in a campaign like ours.

Will you make a donation of whatever is meaningful to you today? Together, we can defend this seat we flipped back in 2020 and keep power in the hands of Coloradans:

Donate

Thanks for all your support,

John