ICYMI: NBC News: A Bush is running in a Trump-love primary and the race is getting ugly

In case you missed it, NBC News published a story about Walker Stapleton’s desperate attempts to court Trump loving GOP voters in Colorado’s Republican primary, despite his ties to the Bush family. Stapleton and his opponents have jockeyed for support of the Trump adoring Republican base and, as the piece notes, “Bush has become a four-letter word in this contest.” To fight that perception, Stapleton has taken a few pages out of the Trump playbook, adopting his extreme rhetoric on immigration and touting his support for other Trump policies.
Read more about Stapleton’s struggle to run in the Trump-era here or below:
NBC News: A Bush is running in a Trump-love primary and the race is getting ugly 
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Bush has become a four-letter word in this contest.
In Colorado, where the GOP will select its gubernatorial nominee Tuesday, a Bush cousin is finding that his ties to the family that once defined Republican politics have tripped him up in a party increasingly defined by a new family — the Trump family.
The frontrunner, state Treasurer Walker Stapleton, shares more than a name with George Herbert Walker and George Walker Bush, who headlined a fundraiser for the candidate in February.
…Former state legislator Victor Mitchell, who polls place in second behind Stapleton, has hammered the Bush connection on the campaign trail and in TV, radio and digital ads.
“Walker Stapleton claims he’s a Trump guy. But Stapleton’s a Bush cousin, taking big bucks from the Trump-hating Bush family network,” says the narrator of one Mitchell radio ad.
…Steve Barlock, who co-chaired Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in Colorado and ran for governor himself before being eliminated at the party convention, said the Bush name is “a huge liability” with Trump voters.
“It’s just the numbers,” Barlock said, citing a poll showing 86 percent of Colorado Republicans approve of the president. “If you tie anybody to Bush, that’s anti-Trump.”
… At the same time, he’s played up his alignment with Trump — and hit Mitchell for not backing the president.
A new TV ad out Tuesday focuses on the danger of sanctuary cities. “I’ll stand with Donald Trump to get illegal aliens who commit crimes deported,” Stapleton says to the camera. And a mailer from Stapleton’s campaign says he “helped President Trump pass tax reform,” while Mitchell “campaigned against President Trump.”