the strategy seems to be having little effect. Buck, a tea party favorite who was prone to gaffes in the primary, has been hit with ads suggesting he too favors repeal of the 17th Amendment. His opponent, Sen. Michael Bennet, also has cast Buck as anti-veteran for suggesting that Veterans Administration hospitals be privatized.

But Buck, the Weld County district attorney, seems to be weathering the critique and has tried to moderate positions that might make him less appealing to centrist voters in the state, said Colorado State University political scientist Kyle Saunders.


In doesn’t hurt, Saunders said, that another tea party candidate seems to be getting most of the attention in the state. The Republican candidate for governor, Dan Maes, has lost considerable support even from his own party,through the career records of Thapar and 25 others shortlisted by Trump last November to see who can rise to the top in arguably the most important job outside the Oval Office- perhaps even more important considering US Supreme Court justices have no term limits or retirement age.

Born in Troy, Michigan, where his father, who immigrated to the US to study and worked at Ford Motor Company after graduating, Thapar, 49, got his law degree from UC Berkeley. He practiced as an attorney in Washington DC, both for the government and in the private sector, before President George Bush nominated him for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, a state whose Senator Mitch McConnell would eventually become a pivotal figure in reconfiguring the