This matrix preserves the evidence basis for a structural civic evaluation of Jessica Killin, Joseph F. Reagan, and Jeff Crank in Colorado's 5th Congressional District. It is designed to make later score updates reproducible from repo-local evidence rather than from an op-ed, live web page, or one-off chat answer.
The matrix uses the following evidence labels:
direct evidence: an inspected source directly documents the action, statement, filing, vote, or committee structure.reported relationship: reporting or a source reports the relationship, but the repo has not inspected a stronger underlying record.donor/employer signal: FEC employer, occupation, donor, committee, or vendor data that can show network shape but does not prove influence, coordination, sponsorship, control, or intent.candidate commitment: campaign-controlled platform, questionnaire, interview, or public statement, not governing behavior.unresolved: evidence remains incomplete, future-filing-dependent, nonpublic, or unavailable.Scores below now preserve the town-hall-integrated evaluation snapshot. Later updates should still re-evaluate after the gap-status actions in co-05-candidate-evaluation-gap-status-2026-05-01 are closed or materially narrowed.
2026-05-01 refresh note: CO-05 FEC line-item and outside-spending refresh, 2026-05-01 and Jeff Crank 119th Congress roll-call refresh, 2026-05-01 now strengthen the line-item finance, independent-expenditure, and Crank roll-call evidence beneath this matrix. Jessica Killin campaign-finance reform position search, 2026-05-01 also adds direct candidate interview evidence that Killin opposes Citizens United and dark money, plus a deeper public-source scan that did not locate Killin-specific public financing, small-donor matching, lobbying-limit, revolving-door, STOCK / TRUST Act, congressional stock-trading, or full ethics-package commitments. The town-hall integration below updates the provisional scores from the earlier snapshot, while preserving the same evidence limits and confidence caps.
Town-hall integration note: CD5 town hall candidate-analysis source summary, 2025-11-15 now adds public-forum evidence for Killin and Reagan and preserves the attribution guardrail that the full ethics-package answer belongs to Zuri Horowitz, not Killin. On 2026-05-09, selected Killin-attributed transcript passages were human-verified for attribution, strengthening confidence in her stock-trading / anti-enrichment, wealth-inequality, public-option, rule-of-law, war-powers, women-in-combat, climate, public-lands, and renewables evidence. A separate 2026-05-09 Reagan targeted-verification pass strengthened labor, public-workforce, health-care, VA-care, due-process, war-powers, stock-trading ethics, and Political Integrity Pledge evidence, while also preserving a truthfulness caveat for an unsupported ICE detention percentage claim. Current race-context sources support treating Killin and Reagan as the Democratic primary comparison; current reporting supports Crank as unopposed in the Republican primary, while the repo still lacks a final official all-candidate 2026 primary list.
May 27 Flip the 5th integration note: the source package at source-note preserves generated ASR / diarization for a pre-Democratic-primary forum. On May 27, 2026, the user validated seven score-moving windows for speaker attribution and substantive content: Killin on Supreme Court / cross-branch ethics and stock-trading restrictions; Reagan on DOJ / inspectors general / AFGE; Killin on codifying DOJ-independence norms into law; Reagan on stock-trading bans, disclosure, and blind trusts; Killin on cross-branch stock-trading bans and ethics consequences; Reagan on war powers; and Reagan / Killin on ICE-DHS lawfulness and accountability. This validation supports integrating the windows as candidate commitment evidence. It does not verify every embedded factual claim, so the May 27 primary-source map keeps separate source gaps for Reagan's 54% local vote figure, door-knock, labor-mobilization, teacher-experience, tariff/tax, Tina Peters, and January 6 fund claims; Killin's Trump stock-trading, debt, war-cost, Strait of Hormuz, water-allocation, and Crank-record claims; and Crank public-lands / administration-alignment mapping.
| Candidate | Current overall score | Overall confidence | Main score driver | Main score limiter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joseph F. Reagan | 7.0 |
medium | explicit anti-corruption, labor, health-care, public-good platform; town-hall and targeted-transcript evidence strengthen labor, public-good, due-process, war-powers, public-workforce, stock-trading ethics, and Political Integrity Pledge evidence; May 27 audio-validated windows strengthen DOJ / inspector-general / AFGE, stock-trading / blind-trust, war-powers, and ICE-DHS accountability evidence | campaign commitments remain mostly untested; Welcome relationship details unresolved; local-support claims are stronger by rows than by dollars; one prior ICE statistic remains unsupported by checked public data; May 27 factual claims still include unresolved or partly contradicted items |
| Jessica Killin | 5.9 |
low to medium | competence, campaign execution, public-good health / veterans / public-lands commitments; direct interview evidence supports opposition to Citizens United and dark money; the March 11 interview supports stock-trading / public-service anti-enrichment direction; verified-attribution passages strengthen wealth-inequality, public-option, rule-of-law, war-powers, women-in-combat, climate, public-lands, renewables, civil-rights, health-care, public-good, and competence evidence; May 27 audio-validated windows add Supreme Court / cross-branch ethics, stock-trading restrictions, DOJ-independence codification, ethics consequences, and ICE-DHS guardrails | no located implementation details for public financing, small-donor matching, lobbying limits, revolving-door limits, named STOCK / TRUST Act reform, or a full enforcement package; donor-class and finance/fintech network concerns; several May 27 numerical claims require method or source support |
| Jeff Crank | 2.8 |
high | direct congressional votes, cosponsorships, official statements, and FEC records | record aligns with donor-friendly, anti-labor, restrictive-voting, anti-DEI, anti-reproductive-rights, and public-sector-shrinkage patterns; May 27 Democratic-primary forum supplies no direct Crank evidence, and the located H.R. 131 vote prevents using a simple anti-clean-water claim against him |
| Category | Killin evidence and score relevance | Reagan evidence and score relevance | Crank evidence and score relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Democracy and anti-corruption reform | Score 5.8, low-to-medium confidence. A March 11, 2026 public interview transcript directly supports Killin opposing Citizens United and dark money, moving the prior ceiling rationale out of date. A May 9, 2026 deep-discovery review clarified that the same interview supports stock-trading / public-service anti-enrichment direction. May 27 audio-validated forum windows add Supreme Court / federal-judiciary ethics, cross-branch stock-trading restrictions, ethics reform with consequences, and codifying DOJ-independence norms into law. A deeper public-source scan still did not locate Killin-specific public financing, small-donor matching, lobbying-limit, revolving-door, named STOCK / TRUST Act, or full ethics-package detail. Evidence class: candidate commitment / direct interview evidence / audio-validated public-forum evidence / bounded negative public-source result / unresolved. |
Score 7.3, medium confidence. Campaign issue page directly supports overturning Citizens United, public campaign financing, dark-money reform, and lobbying restrictions. The Integrity Index / Political Integrity Project pledge image adds direct pledge-artifact evidence for no corporate PAC money, stock-trading ban support, holding no stocks in office, former-member lobbying ban support, and Citizens United opposition; the public database row supports the general pip_pledges: true flag while individual pledge fields were null. May 27 audio-validated windows strengthen DOJ guardrail, inspector-general, stock-trading-ban, disclosure, and blind-trust evidence. Evidence class: candidate commitment / direct pledge artifact / audio-validated public-forum evidence, strong but unimplemented. |
Score 2.0, high confidence. FEC committee/PAC structure, AFP background, SAVE Act support, and lack of serious campaign-finance reform support a low score. Evidence class: direct evidence. |
| Independence from donor class and corporate power | Score 3.8, medium confidence. Cursor-paginated FEC/OpenFEC and repo donor analysis show large fundraising, candidate money, JFC layer, out-of-state dollar tilt, and finance/fintech/legal employer clusters. The 2026-05-01 refresh preserves 1,941 receipt rows and $1,273,988.00 in individual non-memo receipts. Evidence class: direct evidence plus donor/employer signal. |
Score 6.8, medium confidence. 2026 FEC layer is smaller, candidate-loan-driven, and more Colorado-based, and the pledge-image evidence supports no corporate PAC money. Direct Schedule E rows still show WelcomePAC support in 2024. Evidence class: direct evidence plus reported relationship; confidence remains capped until Welcome role details are clarified. |
Score 2.2, high confidence. Cursor-paginated FEC records show large receipt/disbursement universes, and direct Schedule E rows show 118 outside-spending rows totaling $1,415,699.33, led by AFP Action and America Leads Action. Evidence class: direct evidence. |
| Material impact on working people | Score 6.8, low-to-medium confidence. Priorities page supports Medicaid restoration, Medicare drug negotiation, insulin cap, affordable housing, VA staffing, and anti-gouging language. Town-hall answers add verified-attribution wealth / income inequality evidence, DOD child-care cuts, ACA subsidies, Medicaid cuts, and public-option framing. May 27 audio-validated windows strengthen labor / enforcement and ICE-DHS community-safety framing. Evidence class: candidate commitment / public-forum evidence. |
Score 7.4, medium confidence. Issues page supports Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP protection, drug negotiation, childcare, Child Tax Credit, collective bargaining, minimum wage, paid family leave, OSHA, and anti-discrimination enforcement. Town-hall, targeted transcript, and May 27 audio-validated evidence add direct labor, organized-labor, AFGE / VA worker protections, working-class war-burden framing, tariff, health-care staffing, public-option, VA-care, small-business, public-land, and insurance-risk evidence. Evidence class: candidate commitment / public-forum evidence. |
Score 2.8, high confidence. Official roll-call and legislative evidence now includes votes on Medicaid, health-care, labor-management, worker-education, energy, tax, and regulatory measures; the overall pattern still supports a low worker-power / anti-precarity score. Evidence class: direct evidence. |
| Democratic institutions and civil rights | Score 6.9, low-to-medium confidence. Town-hall answers add direct due-process / rule-of-law evidence on ICE, communities of color, Congress as a check on executive lawlessness, and war-powers oversight; verified March 2 transcript attribution also supports women-in-combat equality. May 27 audio-validated windows add DOJ-independence codification, cross-branch integrity, ICE-DHS guardrails, and lawful enforcement framing. Direct voting-rights, LGBTQ-rights, and reproductive-rights specificity remains incomplete but improved by the May 27 forum layer. Evidence class: candidate commitment / audio-validated public-forum evidence / unresolved. |
Score 7.5, medium confidence. Issues page supports reproductive-rights codification and government trust reforms; CPR coverage records rejection of unsupported election-fraud claims and acceptance of election outcomes. Town-hall, targeted transcript, and May 27 audio-validated evidence add due-process, military-diversity, war-powers, executive-accountability, DOJ/IG, and ICE-DHS accountability evidence. Evidence class: candidate commitment plus reported relationship plus audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 2.0, high confidence. Official roll-call evidence now includes Yea votes on H.R. 21, the SAVE Act, and D.C. noncitizen-voting restriction, alongside previously retained cosponsorship / official-record evidence. Evidence class: direct evidence. |
| Truthfulness and epistemic integrity | Score 5.8, low-to-medium confidence. No documented disinformation pattern in current repo. Town-hall health-care answer included explicit governing limits rather than an overpromised 2027 public-option guarantee. May 27 audio validation confirms what Killin said, but the primary-source map keeps several major numerical and policy claims unresolved or method-dependent, including Trump $220M trading, $4.7T debt, Iran / Strait of Hormuz, and the scope of the Colorado River water claim. Evidence class: public-forum evidence / audio-validated statement / unresolved. |
Score 6.0, medium confidence. CPR coverage captures election-legitimacy statements and rejection of unsupported fraud claims. Town-hall answers emphasize concrete governing mechanisms, and the FEC geography check partly supports his local-donor framing by rows. The targeted transcript pass found that one ICE detention percentage claim was not supported by the checked public FactCheck / ICE-data layer; the May 27 primary-source map also found Reagan's 54% El Paso County Amendment 79 figure not matched to official SOS results and leaves door-knock, labor-mobilization, teacher-experience, tariff/tax, Tina Peters, and January 6 fund claims unresolved. Evidence class: reported relationship / audio-validated public-forum evidence / factual caution. |
Score 3.0, medium confidence. Official SAVE Act statements use inflationary noncitizen-voting and partisan-rights framing while acknowledging existing federal citizenship limits. Evidence class: direct evidence; systematic fact-check remains incomplete. |
| Structural understanding versus symptom management | Score 6.6, low-to-medium confidence. Platform names corporate landlords, monopoly utilities, price gouging, tax loopholes, AI / digital-asset oversight, and public lands; the March 11 interview adds money-in-politics diagnosis around Citizens United, dark money, and the two-year fundraising cycle. Town-hall answers add wealth inequality, private insurance, child care, public lands, and war-powers / oversight structure; verified March 2 attribution strengthens the renewables and health-care-system evidence. May 27 audio-validated windows add mechanisms around DOJ norm codification, cross-branch ethics, stock trading, Colorado River allocation, ICE-DHS enforcement incentives, and institutional trust. Implementation detail remains incomplete. Evidence class: candidate commitment / direct interview evidence / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 7.4, medium confidence. Platform connects dark money, corporate power, antitrust, labor rights, childcare, health care, public-agency capacity, and public lands. Town-hall, targeted transcript, and May 27 audio-validated evidence add labor-power, profit-over-patients, health-care reimbursement / VA-care mechanisms, tariff authority, insurance markets, public-land grants, DOJ/IG guardrails, war-powers authority, ICE-DHS lawfulness, small business versus Wall Street, and Washington-elite critique. Evidence class: candidate commitment / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 2.5, high confidence. Crank has a structural view, but it is oriented toward deregulation, tax reduction, federal shrinkage, and conservative enforcement priorities. Evidence class: direct evidence. |
| Courage under pressure | Score 5.8, low confidence. Army service and running in a difficult district are relevant but not equivalent to donor / party / institutional pressure-tested governing acts. Town-hall answers add public criticism of the shutdown outcome and Trump / Crank overreach. May 27 audio-validated windows add DOJ, ICE-DHS, corruption, and public-service integrity answers, but remain campaign statements rather than costly governing acts. Evidence class: reported relationship / audio-validated public-forum evidence / unresolved. |
Score 6.5, low-to-medium confidence. Military service, repeat candidacy, public acceptance of a close 2024 primary result, public criticism of Democratic leadership over the shutdown, and public rejection of DCCC intervention support some courage signal. Targeted transcript and May 27 audio-validated evidence add pressure-facing passages on labor, due process, war powers, anti-insider ethics, AFGE / public-worker protection, and critique of Democrats who support war authority. High-cost governing evidence remains absent. Evidence class: reported relationship / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 4.5, medium confidence. Defeated Trump-backed Dave Williams in 2024 primary, but later congressional record largely aligns with Trump / party agenda. Evidence class: reported relationship plus direct evidence. |
| Coalition building without surrendering principle | Score 6.4, medium confidence. Strong institutional Democratic, veteran, and local endorsement layer; town-hall answers add all-district engagement and representation of voters who did not support her; May 27 answers add party-unity, neighbor-conversation, public-trust, and border-plus-guardrails framing. Local-rootedness and donor-class independence remain contested. Evidence class: reported relationship / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 7.0, medium confidence. Local endorsement layer, civil-rights / labor platform, and Welcome-linked moderate outreach support coalition capacity with some dilution risk. Town-hall and May 27 evidence add community / nonprofit problem-solving, labor engagement, AFGE / Teamsters / teacher references, small-business outreach, and outreach beyond Washington labels. Evidence class: reported relationship / candidate commitment / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 3.0, medium confidence. Can build conservative / donor coalition and district-service lane, but record uses exclusionary and partisan frames on immigration, DEI, gender, and voting. Evidence class: direct evidence. |
| Competence and governing capacity | Score 7.3, medium confidence. Army, USAA, congressional staff, White House, and high fundraising execution support capacity; town-hall answers add direct claims of having set up two congressional offices and a concrete staffing theory; May 27 answers add DOJ, federal workforce, public-health, water, data-center, ICE-DHS, and ethics implementation language. No elected implementation record. Evidence class: direct evidence / reported relationship / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 6.7, medium confidence. Army, veterans-services, nonprofit, campaign, Rotary / local-civic roles, and town-hall / transcript staffing answers support plausible capacity; May 27 answers add DOJ/IG, AFGE, blind-trust, war-powers, and ICE-DHS accountability implementation language. Campaign infrastructure is smaller. Evidence class: direct evidence / reported relationship / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 6.5, high confidence. Congressional staff background, committee assignments, introduced bills, district project work, and campaign success support governing capacity. Evidence class: direct evidence. |
| Willingness to expand the public good | Score 7.0, low-to-medium confidence. Supports VA staffing, Medicaid restoration, Medicare protection, public lands, BLM/NPS resources, wildfire resources, and consumer protections. Town-hall answers add public option / ACA subsidy support, DOD child-care funding concern, public-land defense, and climate / wildfire framing; verified March 2 attribution adds renewable-energy transition evidence; May 27 answers add public-sector capacity, DOJ independence, public health / science, Forest Service, water, and ICE-DHS accountability. Evidence class: candidate commitment / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 7.5, medium confidence. Supports Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, VA, land-management staffing, clean-energy infrastructure, childcare, and public workforce capacity. Town-hall, targeted transcript, and May 27 audio-validated evidence add public option, VA care, green-energy grid investment, federal public-land grants, fire capacity, public-land protection, union transition framing, AFGE / public-worker protections, DOJ/IG capacity, and public-workforce capacity. Evidence class: candidate commitment / audio-validated public-forum evidence. |
Score 3.0, high confidence. Supports selective military / law-enforcement / district spending but backs Department of Education dismantling, IRS funding rescission, OBBBA, and broader public-capacity reduction. Evidence class: direct evidence. |
| Candidate | Ceiling status | Evidence basis | Score consequence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jessica Killin | ceiling does not currently apply, but remains evidence-limited | A March 11, 2026 public interview transcript directly supports opposition to Citizens United and dark money, and the same interview supports stock-trading / public-service anti-enrichment direction. May 27 audio-validated forum evidence adds Supreme Court / cross-branch ethics, stock-trading restrictions across branches, ethics reform with consequences, and DOJ-independence codification. A deeper public-source scan still did not locate public financing, small-donor matching, lobbying-limit, revolving-door, named STOCK / TRUST Act, or full ethics-package detail. | no ceiling reduction applied in the updated 5.9 working score; democracy / anti-corruption score remains capped by missing implementation detail |
| Joseph F. Reagan | ceiling does not apply | Campaign-controlled issues page explicitly supports overturning Citizens United, public campaign financing, dark-money reform, and lobbying restrictions. Integrity Index / Political Integrity Project pledge-image evidence also lists support for a stock-trading ban, holding no stocks in office, former-member lobbying ban support, no corporate PAC money, and Citizens United opposition. | no ceiling reduction |
| Jeff Crank | ceiling applies | No direct support for serious campaign-finance reform; FEC/AFP/PAC/committee evidence points in the opposite direction. | score already far below 6.0 |
donor/employer signal, not proof of institutional donations, coordination, sponsorship, control, or policy influence.candidate commitment, not governing behavior.reported relationship or campaign evidence unless the endorsing organization independently documents a policy rationale.Re-score the candidates after any of the following: