Then candidate Jeff Crank, the Republican representative-elect from Colorado’s 5th Congressional District, speaks at a rally for Republican President-elect Donald Trump at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center on Oct. 11, 2024, in Aurora. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Crank will be the new representative for Colorado’s 5th Congressional District after the Colorado Springs-centered district went more than 10 years represented by U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn.
The 57-year-old Colorado Springs Republican is a longtime political consultant and radio show host. Crank previously ran in the 5th District GOP primary in 2006 and 2008. He’s a former executive with the free-market organization Americans for Prosperity, and in the 1990s he served on the Washington staff of a previous 5th District representative, Joel Hefley.
Crank will serve on the House Armed Services Committee as well as the House Committee on Natural Resources alongside fellow Colorado Republicans U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert. Crank said working on the Armed Services Committee is “very critical to my district” and that he’s looking forward to working with “a good Colorado contingent” on the Natural Resources Committee.
The 5th Congressional District is home to U.S. Space Command, which has been at full operational capacity at the Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs since December 2023. President Joe Biden announced in July that year it would stay in Colorado after officials expressed concern that President-elect Donald Trump’s decision during his first presidential term to move Space Command to Alabama was politically motivated. Trump waited until after the 2020 election to announce the move, when Alabama went for Trump and Colorado went for Biden.
Crank said he’s already met or spoke with every other member of Colorado’s congressional delegation to discuss “a strategy on Space Command.” Nobody has explained the “military value” of moving Space Command out of the state, Crank said, so he will “keep pressing” to maintain full operational capacity in Colorado.
“I believe that the American people elected President Trump because they believe in a strong national defense, and a big part of that is Space Command,” Crank said. “Space is the frontier right now. The United States leads in the military space area, but both China and Russia are rapidly trying to catch us, and so we need to do everything we can to stay ahead of that.”
When he gets to Congress, other priorities for Crank will include securing the border, controlling inflation by reducing federal spending, and reducing the size and scope of government.
Crank appeared on stage when Trump came to Aurora in October and detailed his plans to “hunt down, arrest and deport,” undocumented immigrants connected to gangs and spoke of “cleaning out” the country of undocumented immigrants. Trump called the plan Operation Aurora.
Voters “have made it very, very clear” that securing the border is important to them, Crank said, and elected officials who don’t prioritize the issue “do that at their peril.”
“The American people were pretty clear they actually support by a pretty wide margin deportations of people who are here illegally. I am for deporting people who are here illegally, and starting with felons,” Crank said. “There has to be a penalty or a price to pay when you break the law and you come here illegally. We’ve got to get control of the border, and I think the only way you do that is to have a rule of law and have a process.”
The process in place to come to the U.S. legally is “broken,” Crank said, and he is in favor of fixing that process to make it easier for people to come into the country legally.
Protection for veterans benefits
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, Crank said he will look for new military missions and units that could come to Colorado Springs, and base closures that could affect the district. Being on the committee will be important for Colorado as conversations on the future of Air National Guard space units continue, he said.
The Colorado delegation can also work together on federal lands issues and military benefits for families, for example. Crank said he is “willing to work with anybody to do good things,” and he sees opportunity to do so with both Democrats and Republicans from Colorado.
Trump has said he will impose sweeping 25% tariffs on major American trade partners including Mexico, Canada and China as part of his efforts to bring down the cost of living. Economic experts say Trump’s proposals will hurt American families’ wallets with more expensive cars, appliances and technology.
Crank said he is “not a giant fan” of tariffs as they ultimately increase the cost of products, but he said he understands how Trump is using “the threat of tariffs to get a good deal and to get other countries to come to the bargaining table.”
The Trump administration also pitched a new Department of Government Efficiency, which he tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run. Crank said he’s looking for “great ideas from people who have been in the business community” like Musk to find places to be more efficient and make cuts in the federal government.
“The time is long past. We’re $36 trillion in debt now, and many decades ago we should have started tightening the belt and balanced our budgets and we just kicked the can down the road,” Crank said. “We can’t do that forever. There will be a price to pay if we continue to do that.”
Crank said many people in his district he’s talked to rely on government benefits for veterans and military retirees, as well as Social Security.
“To me, having excessive government spending in other areas actually threatens the promise of those benefits that we’ve made to retirees,” Crank said. “So those are the things we’ve got to protect, and the only way you protect those is by making tougher choices on things that are more discretionary. We can’t break faith with veterans, we can’t break faith with military retirees.”
People in the 5th District also told Crank that they “just need government out of the way,” including those who said they had trouble starting a business because of “red tape” federal and state regulations created.
Colorado’s new members of Congress spend the time between Election Day and Jan. 3, when they’re sworn in, transitioning constituent services and setting up offices in their districts and D.C. Lamborn has been “very gracious” to Crank during the transition process, Crank said, and several staff members who have worked for Lamborn will join Crank’s team.
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