the central committee that you do so?", to which Bremer replied he understood, and reiterated he would seek legal advice. Buck told The Denver Post on May 6 that Colorado political party committees traditionally made such decisions. The primary between Stiver and his opponent had been unfair due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Colorado, Buck said. He further claimed he was not asking Bremer "to commit fraud", but asking "if he understood the decision of the central committee and if he was willing to follow the request of the Republican central committee". Buck also said he had no "personal stake in the process". Meanwhile, Bremer decried that the Republican Party he belonged to was "for the rule of law except when it applies to us". 2010 U.S. Senate campaign Republican primary Angered by what he later called the nation's "lurch to the left," Buck announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate on April 28, 2009. In his first run for statewide office, Buck frequently referenced national issues in defining his goals as a U.S. senator. Among these were his opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (a program of federal economic stimulus initiated under President George W. Bush and finalized under President Barack Obama) and the role of federal policy czars. Buck also stressed mounting governmental debt, an issue to which he frequently returned during the primary campaign. Contrasting himself to what he argued was the "top down" style of early Republican favorite Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton, Buck pledged a "bottom-up" campaign that would include visits to each of Colorado's 64 counties. Initially Norton was seen to have had a nearly insurmountable advantage against "a band of underfunded unknowns" that included Buck, who early in the primary season was called "a dead-in-the-water Republican U.S. Senate candidate with laughable fundraising totals and little establishment GOP support". Norton's staff at the beginning of the campaign was twice the size of Buck's. He attempted to make a virtue of his meager war chest by positioning "himself as the small-money underdog" in an election cycle that saw a "populist push for outsider candidates to upset the Washington establishment". After receiving nearly $600,000 in a television advertising support from Americans for Job Security and a victory in March at the state party's caucuses, Buck began to receive endorsements and notice. By late spring of 2010, Colorado