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.
-WATCH full video of this episode here.
-Check out Bob Chew’s campaign site here.
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