Colorado Republican's anti-woman crusade could flip the state Senate

With a razor-thin, one-seat majority in the state Senate, Colorado Republicans can’t afford any losses this November if they hope to keep control of the chamber. But that hasn’t stopped GOP incumbent Tim Neville from taking a hard-right turn in a district that’s trending blue.

In the lead-up to his failed 2016 run for the U.S. Senate, the already-conservative Neville embraced a truly radical agenda in hopes of winning over the GOP base. But now that Neville’s national campaign has flopped, he has to reckon with just how out of touch he has become with his voters back home.

Neville is virulently anti-choice, and supported an extreme bill that would have robbed Colorado women of virtually all their reproductive freedoms. The bill would have banned all abortion, and many forms of birth control, by giving fertilized eggs legal “personhood” status.

Neville also opposed a successful teen pregnancy prevention program, and supported other laws that would make it more difficult for women to obtain an abortion.

Neville won re-election in 2014 by less than three percentage points in Colorado State Senate District 16, a moderate suburban area located southwest of Denver.

But the district has leaned more and more Democratic with each passing election cycle, mirroring a larger trend in Colorado.

District 16 backed President Barack Obama by two percentage points in 2012 — but supported Hillary Clinton by a whopping nine points in 2016.

Yet Neville still clings to his shockingly radical right-wing agenda.

Neville also supports allowing concealed-carry permit holders to bring guns inside schools, and doesn’t believe in climate change. He even wanted to “make it easier for unvaccinated children to attend Colorado public schools,” Colorado Pols reports.

Last year, Neville also accepted the maximum-allowable donation from Team America Political Action Committee — which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The difference is like night and day between Neville’s radical anti-woman agenda and that of his opponent, pro-choice Democrat Tammy Story.

Story has been endorsed by progressive groups such as Planned Parenthood, and by President Barack Obama. She’s part of the so-called “Fab Five,” a group of progressive women candidates whose Senate races may determine which party controls Colorado’s upper chamber next year.

Neville is no doubt hoping outside money from the far-right billionaire Koch brothers will help buoy his chances this cycle. To date, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity political action committee has donated $110,000 to Neville’s run.

Locally, however, Neville has been badly out-raised by his Democratic opponent.

Neville is facing some of the same high hurdles as Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO), who is struggling to keep his U.S. House seat this cycle.

While not as radically right as Neville, Coffman also votes in favor of Trump’s agenda almost all the time, despite representing a suburban Denver district that supported Obama and Clinton in recent presidential contests.

And it looks like Coffman’s party doesn’t think he can walk that tightrope any longer. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House GOP leadership, reportedly cut off its financial support of Coffman last week.

And for a candidate as extreme as Tim Neville, the outlook could be even grimmer.