A Colorado music promoter is weighing a Republican campaign against two-term Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D).

The Denver Business Journal reported Thursday that Jimmy Lakey, who owns concert promotion and artist management companies, has formed an "exploratory committee" to prepare for a possible run in Colorado's 7th district, which includes suburbs of Denver.

The report said that Lakey is concerned about "reckless spending" in Washington, D.C.

The Republican primary in Colorado's 4th District is getting crowded even though national Republican officials are backing the campaign of state Rep. Cory Gardner against freshman Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey.

Dean Madere, a self-described "average middle class citizen" who has been active in local conservative groups, formally kicked off his campaign Wednesday. He is the fourth Republican to announce plans to seek the district in northern and eastern Colorado that Markey won last year by beating then-Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave.

Madere's announcement came a few days after Diggs Brown, a financial adviser and military veteran, said that he would be a candidate.

They voted for the health care bill. With enough money behind the opposition, could they be voted out of office next year?

Republicans aim to find out with a new effort to raise campaign funds for challengers to two dozen House Democrats who voted for the health care bill earlier this month.

Reverse The Vote Victory Committee was established this week with the Federal Election Commission as a joint fundraising committee that will collect contributions to distribute among 24 GOP challengers.

It's still months until the first nominees will be formally selected in primary elections, so the committee for the time being will give campaign funds to 24 separate "congressional victory committees" that in turn will deliver the funds to party nominees once they are determined.

Republican Scott Tipton, a Colorado state representative, announced Monday that he will challenge Democrat John Salazar for the congressional seat he has held for three terms.

"With encouragement from people around our district -- Republicans, Democrats, unaffiliated voters -- I am entering the race to represent the 3rd Congressional District of Colorado," Tipton said in a statement Monday.

Tipton criticized actions the Democratic-run Congress has taken during the first nine months of the Obama administration ­-- including a health care bill that the House narrowly passed over the weekend with Salazar's support.

Colorado Republican Tom Wiens has filed the paperwork to make official his 2010 campaign for the Senate.

Wiens, a former state senator, filed a statement of candidacy and a statement of organization on Oct. 27 with the Senate public records office in Washington, D.C. He had previously formed an "exploratory" committee to consider challenging Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

Wiens told The Colorado Statesman newspaper earlier this month that he would make an official announcement of candidacy in the first week of November. He told the publication that he has a 100-person campaign finance team to help him raise the millions he'll need for the race.

The first campaign finance report filed by Colorado Republican Jane Norton, a former lieutenant governor who is running for the Senate in 2010, reads like a Who's Who of GOP officeholders past and present, strategists and lobbyists.

Prominent Republicans in Colorado and Washington, D.C., helped Norton raise $510,000 in less than one month as an active candidate for the seat Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet is defending.

That is more money raised to date by any of the other Colorado Republican candidates for Senate, some of whom have been campaigning for months. One of them, Aurora city councilman Ryan Frazier, raised just $71,000 in this year's third quarter and dropped out of the Senate race last week to run instead for a House seat in suburban Denver.

Colorado Republican Ryan Frazier is ending his long-planned bid for a Senate seat and instead will challenge Rep. Ed Perlmutter in the state's 7th District.

Frazier, who is a city councilman in Aurora, made the announcement Thursday in Brighton, a Denver suburb in the district in which Perlmutter is serving his second term.

"It's time to re-energize the people's House with new leadership and better solutions," Frazier said in a statement his campaign released. "The 7th Congressional District represents the right path, right now to do my part in helping make America better."

The NARAL Pro-Choice America Political Action Committee has announced its first round of endorsements for the 2010 election cycle.

The pro-abortion-rights group has endorsed freshman Reps. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Betsy Markey, D-Colo., Scott Murphy, D-N.Y., and Mark Schauer, D-Mich.

Republican challengers have already filed to challenge Heinrich, Markey and Schauer, and Murphy is expected to have a tough race if local GOP leaders can find a top-notch candidate.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement that Markey and Schauer defeated anti-abortion incumbents in Colorado and Michigan, respectively, while Henrich "is likely" to face an opponent who opposes abortion rights. The PAC contributed $5,000 each to the campaigns of the four Democrats, according to the news release.

Colorado Republican Jane Norton raised more than a half-million dollars in her first 16 days as a challenger for the Senate seat that Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet is defending.

Norton, a former lieutenant governor, will file a report showing she raised $506,000 between Sept. 15 -- when she announced her candidacy -- and the end of the month, the cutoff for this year's third-quarter filing period. Detailed campaign reports must be filed with the Senate Office of Public Records in Washington by Oct. 15.

Norton's campaign said that it received contributions from 587 donors, for an average of about $860 per donation, and that the total reflected "tremendous financial support" for her campaign.

One reason Colorado Democrat Betsy Markey unseated Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave last year is that Musgrave had a reputation of being more concerned about hotbutton social issues and not the everyday economic struggles of residents of the state's 4th District.

Republican state Rep. Cory Gardner, who is probably the leading Republican challenger to Markey in the 2010 election, thinks that the 4th District, which includes vast swaths of northern and eastern Colorado, will return to its Republican roots by responding to his message of fiscal restraint and limited government.

"I am focusing on the issues - the economy, kitchen-table matters, and those things that are affecting people's everyday lives today," Gardner said Wednesday at a meeting with reporters that was organized by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the campaign arm of the House GOP.