Months before the election, Republican Darryl Glenn is fighting for his political life.

The U.S. Senate candidate is struggling to prove he is a viable candidate against Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet, as national political forecasters are increasingly suggesting the race is a lost cause for Republicans.

Colorado recently shifted to “safe Democratic” status in projections from the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato — the third in a trio of prominent prognosticators to give Bennet the clear edge in a contest that once ranked among the most competitive in the nation.

Based on public and private polling, as well as party insiders, Sabato reported that Republicans in Colorado are losing ground.

“That includes the Senate race, too,” he reasoned. “(Bennet) should be able to run ahead of (Hillary) Clinton against an underfunded Republican opponent … who national Republicans appear to have written off.”

The dismal projection for Glenn, a little-known El Paso County commissioner, comes at a crucial time as the national Republican Party and conservative groups consider how much to invest in the race.

The influential political network run by Charles and David Koch recently decided not to put money or resources into the Colorado Senate race, focusing instead on six other states that may decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.

Two other organizations are picking up the slack. But the importance of the Kochs’ decision is hard to understate given that it pumped big money and thousands of volunteers into the successful effort to unseat Democrat Mark Udall in 2014.

Glenn won the five-way Republican primary with significant help from outside conservative groups, which spent $700,000 through June 30 to get him elected, according to a new accounting of federal campaign reports that matches outside analyses.

The candidate spent just $228,000 in his 18-month bid, and the outside help allowed him to remain on par with two millionaire rivals. Jack Graham, who finished a distant second, spent $2.2 million and third-place finisher Robert Blaha spent $1.2 million, according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings.

Entering 2016, Bennet offered a key pickup opportunity as the only Democratic incumbent facing re-election in competitive state. He won his 2010 race by a narrow 1.6 percentage points.

And despite failing to recruit a top candidate into the race, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is trying to fight the perception that it is giving up on Colorado.

“Anyone who won the primary would have a very good chance against Senator Gitmo,” NRSC director Ward Baker said. His reference to Bennet alludes to what fact-checkers consider a falsehood repeated by Republicans that the senator wants to bring prisoners from Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Colorado.

Bennet, he added, “has really accomplished nothing other than wanting to support the Iran deal.”

The NRSC, the party’s Senate campaign arm, snubbed Glenn in June when it did not congratulate him for the primary win. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky even backed Glenn’s rival, Jon Keyser, in the primary, donating $5,000 to the campaign.

Baker could not explain why his organization did not embrace Glenn at first. But he said the candidate flew to Washington to meet with NRSC officials in July.

The NRSC, Baker said, “had someone on the ground with Darryl Glenn since he won the nomination.”

But the staffer, Clinton Soffer, is the national field director based in Nevada and splits his time between multiple battleground states. And so far, the organization has not put money into television ads in Colorado — as it is doing in other key states — which offers a sign about how it views the race.

Glenn’s campaign declined a request to comment for this story.

Bennet has spent more than $3.5 million so far on TV ads. The campaign resumed its TV spots last week and is expected to continue to remain on the air through the election.

Without the party’s help, Glenn is once again getting a lift from independent groups. Restoration PAC spent more than $800,000 in July for TV ads that call Glenn “an outsider — honest — a military veteran who tells it like it is.”

The super PAC is largely funded by conservative donor Richard Uihlein, a wealthy Illinois businessman, and it is planning to spend more in coming months.

“We think that Darryl Glenn can win this race. But he’s desperately in need of some name ID and exposure,” said Dan Curry, a Restoration PAC spokesman. “We think he can pull the upset with the right level of support.”

More help also is arriving from Senate Conservatives Fund, the organization disavowed by Republican leadership that injected the bulk of the money into getting Glenn elected in the June 28 primary. The group says that it has put more than $1 million into helping Glenn to date.

It is expected to spend thousands more ahead of November.

“We are very proud to have joined the grassroots in Colorado and several leading conservatives in supporting Darryl Glenn, and we will continue to do everything we can to help him defeat Sen. Michael Bennet in November,” Ken Cuccinelli, the organization’s president, said in a statement.