Joe O'Dea

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Joe O'Dea

Republican Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 8, 2022

Personal

Birthplace

Denver, Colo.

Religion

Catholic

Profession

Business executive

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

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Personal LinkedIn

Joe O'Dea (Republican Party) ran for election to the U.S. Senate to represent Colorado. He lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.

O'Dea completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Joe O'Dea was born in Denver, Colorado. O'Dea's career experience includes owning the Mile High Station and Ironworks event centers and working as the CEO of CEI Constructors, Inc.

Elections

2022

See also: United States Senate election in Colorado, 2022

General election

General election for U.S. Senate Colorado

The following candidates ran in the general election for U.S. Senate Colorado on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Michael Bennet (D)	55.9	1,397,170
		Joe O'Dea (R)	41.3	1,031,693
		Brian Peotter (L)	1.7	43,534
		T.J. Cole (Unity Party)	0.7	16,379
		Frank Atwood (Approval Voting Party)	0.5	11,354
	Submit photo	Tom Harvey (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	29
	Submit photo	Joanne Rock (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	25
	Submit photo	John Rutledge (L) (Write-in)	0.0	9
	Submit photo	Robert Messman (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	8

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 2,500,201
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Aaron Trevino (Independent)
• Teal'c Anderson (Freedom Party)
• Aaron Pehrson (Independent)

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Colorado

Incumbent Michael Bennet advanced from the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Colorado on June 28, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Michael Bennet	100.0	516,985

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 516,985
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Dan Chapin (D)

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate Colorado

Joe O'Dea defeated Ron Hanks and Daniel Hendricks in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate Colorado on June 28, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Joe O'Dea	54.4	345,060
		Ron Hanks	45.5	288,483
		Daniel Hendricks (Write-in)	0.0	302

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 633,845
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Gino Campana (R)
• Juli Henry (R)
• Erik Aadland (R)
• Eli Bremer (R)
• Gregory Moore (R)
• Deborah Flora (R)
• Peter Yu (R)

Approval Voting Party convention

Approval Voting Party convention for U.S. Senate Colorado

Frank Atwood advanced from the Approval Voting Party convention for U.S. Senate Colorado on March 26, 2022.

		Candidate
✔		Frank Atwood (Approval Voting Party)

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Joe O'Dea completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by O'Dea's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Joseph (Joe) O’Dea (born January 20, 1962) is an American businessman in the construction industry, and candidate for United States Senator from Colorado. He is the CEO of a Denver-based heavy civil contracting company and O’Dea and his wife Celeste O’Dea are the owners of popular event venues near Mile High Stadium. One of the event centers, Ironworks, is a property that is more than 100 years old. It was originally occupied by Midwest Steel Company and produced frameworks for many of the buildings that can be seen in downtown Denver today. Joe and Celeste O’Dea have one adult daughter.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• Joe is running to defend working Americans, to be their voice in Washington.
• Joe is running to stand-up to all the reckless spending – he will be a leader who is laser focused on reducing the debt.
• Joe is running to keep America safe and secure. The honorable men and women who serve and protect deserve two things from us in return – they deserve our gratitude and they deserve our support.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Defending Working Americans. When I say working Americans, I mean small business owners, I mean the people who work, who contribute, who play by the rules. Working Americans are being ignored by Washington.

I want an America for your grandkids and mine that values and rewards hard work.

Washington isn’t focused on working people. And those policies have deep consequences. Out-of-control inflation, taxation, and red tape are destroying the value of work in our country. When everything costs more, your paycheck is worth less, and your work is devalued. That’s wrong.

Here’s something you should know about inflation. The biggest driver of inflation is the embrace of socialism by the political elites in Washington. They are funding a massive expansion of the federal government by printing money – and dumping all that printed money into the economy causes inflation.

Reducing the Debt. Out of control debt at the federal level is a moral issue. We are saddling our kids and grandkids with huge debts that will only be paid for with huge tax increases.

The national debt is currently $28 trillion. That’s more than $85,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. And it’s even more – about $225,000 – for every U.S. taxpayer.

I will be the kind of leader who has the back of the men and women who wear the uniform. That means I will stand with our police and firefighters. And I’ll defend and fight for the men and women in our armed services each and every day.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

The ability to work across the aisle and to make tough or right decisions even if they might not be popular.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

Partisanship and political division is the number one threat to America and to our continued prosperity. I’ll be the kind of Senator who works with reasonable people on both sides of the aisle.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

One of my very first jobs was washing dishes to pay to attend Mullen High School. I later started my construction company while still in college. That same company today proudly employees over 300 families.

What are your thoughts on term limits?

I proudly signed the U.S. Term Limits Pledge, promising to only serve two terms as US Senator.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign website

O'Dea's campaign website stated the following:

“	DEFENDING WORKING AMERICANS When I say working Americans, I mean the middle class, I mean small business owners, I mean the people who work, who contribute, who play by the rules. Working Americans are being ignored by Washington. I want an America for your grandkids and mine that values and rewards hard work. Hard work makes people better. Washington isn’t focused on working people. And those policies have deep consequences. Out-of-control inflation, taxation, and red tape are destroying the value of work in our country. When everything costs more, your paycheck is worth less, and your work is devalued. That’s wrong. Here’s something you should know about inflation. The biggest driver of inflation is the embrace of socialism by the political elites in Washington. They are funding a massive expansion of the federal government by printing money – and dumping all that printed money into the economy causes inflation. REDUCING THE DEBT Out of control debt at the federal level is a moral issue. We are saddling our kids and grandkids with huge debts that will only be paid for with huge tax increases. The national debt is currently $28 trillion. That’s more than $85,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. And it’s even more – about $225,000 – for every U.S. taxpayer. Just the interest on the national debt costs taxpayers more than $500 billion per year. That’s half a trillion dollars every year, just on interest. I understand why we needed to spend on things like the Payroll Protection Program during the depths of the pandemic. But adding another $3.5 trillion to the national debt, like the budget Michael Bennet supported, is just crazy. I will not be a blank check in Washington like Michael Bennet. I will not support increasing the debt ceiling without a long-term plan to lower the debt. Washington needs to look at borrowing money the same way a business does and the same way a family does. We can’t say yes to everything. We have to prioritize and only borrow when we know how we’re going to pay it back. Otherwise we’re just raising taxes on our kids. A STRONG AND SECURE AMERICA Reckless decisions from left-wing politicians are making the world more dangerous. What happened in Afghanistan is an outrage and a foreign policy blunder of epic proportions – and that same brand of far-left extremism is making our neighborhoods and our communities less safe too. Overseas, we are caving to extremists, authoritarians, and communist governments everywhere: The Taliban. Russia. China. Iran. We aren’t listening to our military and other people on the ground. And when America shows weakness, the world is less safe. Here at home, we are losing our cities to homelessness and crime. The political elite refuse to stand with the police and first responders. For political reasons, the political elite is allowing homelessness, mental health, drug and alcohol abuse and even violent crime to get completely out of control. Denver is a disaster – it’s a true tragedy. And if we don’t get serious about protecting our streets and our people, our suburbs will be overrun by crime and homelessness too. My dad was a Denver beat cop. So the way the police are being demonized really upsets me. Defunding the police isn’t just a bad idea. It’s morally wrong and the communities who suffer the most aren’t the rich or the middle class – it’s people in poor and disadvantaged communities. I will be the kind of leader who has the back of the men and women who wear the uniform. That means I will stand with our police and firefighters. And I’ll defend and fight for the men and women in our armed services each and every day.	”
—Joe O'Dea's campaign website (2022)

See also

2022 Elections

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Candidate

U.S. Senate Colorado

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Footnotes

[show]

Colorado's current delegation to the United States Congress

Senators

Michael Bennet (D)

John Hickenlooper (D)

Representatives

District 1

Diana DeGette (D)

District 2

Joe Neguse (D)

District 3

Jeff Hurd (R)

District 4

Lauren Boebert (R)

District 5

Jeff Crank (R)

District 6

Jason Crow (D)

District 7

Brittany Pettersen (D)

District 8

Gabe Evans (R)

Democratic Party (6)

Republican Party (4)