When Democratic Senate candidate Lorena Garcia arrived at a trendy bar in Denver’s LoHi neighborhood last month, a young Republican named Derrick was one of the first people she hugged.

“I assume you’re here to support me this time,” she told him before they broke into hearty laughs.

It was an unusually warm welcome for Derrick, the most consistent fixture on Colorado’s Senate campaign trail. He drives to all corners of the state and everywhere in between with one duty: keep a hand-held camera trained on the many Democrats challenging U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner.

“I have nothing to hide,” Garcia said of his presence. “I’m authentic. If I ever get to a point where I’m afraid that something I say could be used against me, then I should just give up.”

Derrick is a tracker with America Rising, a political action committee and opposition research firm for Republicans. He and his employer wouldn’t provide his full name, but the La Plata County sheriff believes it to be Derrick Pitts.

His job, as he once told another Senate hopeful, is to catch Democratic candidates saying something they will later regret. It’s a job that will continue through next November and will increasingly involve trailing John Hickenlooper.

Derrick has put thousands of miles on his car and listened to countless speeches by the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, sometimes driving for hours across the state, only to be kicked out of an event or blocked from entering. Trackers are common in major races in Colorado and elsewhere, although Democrats say Derrick’s style is unusually aggressive. That style has garnered significant attention on the campaign trail.

Most of the Democratic candidates — including some who later dropped out — have developed their own ways of dealing with him. On a Wednesday afternoon in Winchester this summer, a campaign aide brought Andrew Romanoff a maroon coffee mug during a question-and-answer session.

“It’s just water,” Romanoff said into his microphone, lifting the mug and turning toward Derrick and the camera that had been fixed on him for the past 45 minutes. “Nothing stronger than that,” said the Democrat, a teetotaler who also doesn’t drink coffee.

Turning back to the crowd of about 40 people who had gathered to hear him speak, Romanoff said, “I don’t know what they’re going to do with this video.”

Derrick was at the latest Senate candidate forum in Durango this month and the first candidate forum, in Denver on June 9. He was blocked from entering the Durango event, but a host at the June forum told attendees to “treat him with respect and let him be, let him do his job.”

“Now we are in a debate about whether or not to include a question around citizenship,” candidate Stephany Rose Spaulding said later in the forum, during a question about the 2020 census, “and it really is a problem that is as deep as the roots of the tree behind our tracker.” Derrick, standing under a large tree to Spaulding’s right, nearly doubled over from laughter.

Other interactions have been less pleasant. When Derrick tried to record a Spaulding speech at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, where she is a professor, he was told he couldn’t. “This is a public institution and a university event,” Spaulding said to him. He remained and recorded anyway. A university spokesman told The Denver Post that professors can prohibit recordings of their lectures and remarks on campus to preserve their intellectual property.

Outside the Sept. 7 forum in Durango, La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith asked Derrick to stop recording through a door that had been opened to allow air into a stuffy conference room. Smith, a Democrat, was so surprised by the conversation that followed, he detailed it in a lengthy email to America Rising, Derrick’s employer. America Rising did not respond to a request for comment.

“No, I will not leave,” Derrick said, after being told his actions were legal but a nuisance, according to Smith’s recollection.

“I was just trying to appeal to your humanity,” Smith then told him, referring to the forum’s elderly attendees and their discomfort in the hot room.

“I’m a Republican; I don’t have any,” Derrick sarcastically responded, according to the sheriff.

Outside a Democratic event in Castle Rock over the summer, a man repeatedly bumped into Derrick and got in his way on a sidewalk in front of Dan Baer’s vehicle, where the tracker was waiting to record the then-candidate leaving.

“Please stop touching me! Please stop touching me,” Derrick told the bystander at one point.

No one politely engages with the tracker more than Romanoff, the leading liberal candidate in the Democratic race. He has mentioned him in fundraising emails dating to mid-June. He brings up Derrick in speeches, while answering questions from voters, in conversations with reporters.

“The Republican Party has decided to hire somebody to follow me all across the state and record every word that I say with you, and the words that you choose to share with me,” Romanoff told the Winchester crowd July 31, motioning to the tracker. “I take it as a compliment. I figure if they weren’t worried about our campaign, they wouldn’t be spending so much money.”

Outside an event in Golden, Romanoff even half jokingly attempted to earn Derrick’s vote.

“Have you picked a candidate yet?” he asked.

“I have,” Derrick said.

“Is it — don’t tell me — Cory?” Romanoff said with a grin, referring to Gardner.

“Of course,” Derrick told him.

Colorado’s Republican tracker has been booed, kicked out, bumped into, insulted, questioned and yelled at. But he’s also been welcomed, hugged and thanked. And there are still 14 months to go.