Wayne Wolf to take on John Salazar

Republican Wayne Wolf plans to challenge Democratic congressman Rep. John Salazar in his 2008 re-election bid, according to federal election documents.

Wolf, a Delta County Commissioner, recently abandoned his quest to replace Sen. Wayne Allard in the U.S. Senate after Colorado Republicans backed former congressman Bob Schaffer in the upcoming August primary.

"There’s a feeling among Republicans that Democrats have benefited from having contentious primary races," Wolf said in a phone interview about his departure from the Senate race.

Wolf said "it was a more logical first step" to run for a House seat, particularly after Republican party leaders encouraged him to take on Salazar in Colorado's 3rd District. To date, Wolf said he's raised a few thousand dollars from family and friends for the House race but plans to build a full staff in coming weeks.

Salazar, now in his second two-year term, has more than $500,000 in the bank, according to his campaign coordinator Hollie Velasquez. She said the campaign was confident 2008's result would be similar to that of two years ago, when Salazar defeated Republican Scott Tipton by more than 60 percent of the vote.

The nonpartisan Cook Political report currently ranks Salazar’s seat as “Solid Democratic,” even though it was held by Republican Scott McInnis for twelve years prior to 2005.

“Any campaign on the Western slope is going to be difficult for a challenger, because it takes a lot of money to become known,” said Dave Wasserman, House editor for the Report.

Salazar is the older brother of Sen. Ken Salazar, who also was elected to Congress for the first time in 2004.

Bookmark/Search this post with: