Colorado has become one of the clearest case studies in America of what happens when voters lose faith in the rigged two-party system. A mere 25% of the state is registered Democrat. 23% is Republican. The remaining 52% — a majority — reject both. Into that opening steps Bob Chew: former Navy officer on a nuclear submarine during the Cold War, engineer, entrepreneur who grew a company from four employees to hundreds, and now the independent candidate for U.S. Senate challenging John Hickenlooper head-on. Paul Rieckhoff sits down with Chew for the latest installment of the Meet the Independent Candidate series to talk about why a lifelong problem-solver decided he could no longer sit on the sidelines.
The conversation moves from the debt bomb — $8 trillion added under Biden, $4 trillion already under Trump’s second term — to the unpopularity of the Democratic brand, to the mechanics of running without a party machine behind you. Chew explains why he’s putting his own money into the race, why he’s writing checks to fellow independent veterans like Todd Achilles, Brian Bengs, and Dan Osborn, and how the Forward Party helped him get on the ballot without the usual gauntlet. This is a portrait of the independent movement as it actually is: a coalition of former Republicans, former Democrats, and never-affiliated Americans who share one conviction — that the American dream is worth defending, and that neither party is doing the job.
In this episode
- Why 52% of Colorado voters now reject both major parties — and what that opens up
- Bob Chew’s path from Cleveland kid to Navy nuclear sub officer to global CEO to first-time candidate
- The $8 trillion debt bomb: Biden’s four years, Trump’s two, and a former Comptroller of the Currency warning it could blow up when rates spike
- Why Chew left the Republican Party a year ago — and how he defines independent
- The Democratic brand problem: 7% inflation, overregulation, and the “vote blue or else” mantra that stopped working
- How the Forward Party got him on the ballot without a signature grind
- Player-coach mode: writing checks to Todd Achilles, Brian Bengs, Dan Osborn and the rest of the independent veteran slate
- Internal polling: Chew beats Hickenlooper by 11 and the Republican by 18 with informed voters
- Contrast with Hickenlooper: a Navy veteran vs. a career politician with no national security background in a veteran-rich state
- Six objectives for the campaign — only one of them is called winning
