Colorado Republican candidates and local party officials are objecting to a plan by statewide GOP leaders to endorse candidates in the June 25 primary, a break from the party’s decades-long tradition of staying neutral.
The GOP on Tuesday sent a three-page questionnaire to Republican congressional and state legislative candidates nominated at assemblies quizzing them on a range of issues, including whether they support “President Trump’s populist, America-first agenda.”
Three congressional candidates have denounced the plan to endorse candidates in the primary. And party leaders in two of the state’s eight congressional districts — the 3rd and 8th, both of which are competitive — told The Colorado Sun they won’t participate by refusing to make recommendations to state party leaders. They said it’s unfair to endorse candidates when more than one are nominated at assemblies, as happened in both districts.
State Board of Education Member Stephen Varela received 33.5% of the delegate vote at the 3rd District nominating assembly last month over former state Rep. Ron Hanks, an ally of GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who received 32% of the vote. Four other Republicans made the ballot by gathering petition signatures.
Varela issued a statement Tuesday saying he wouldn’t complete the state party’s endorsement survey.
“Grassroots conservatives spoke at the CD Republican assembly,” Varela said in a written statement. “I won top line. Why would a handful of party bosses disrespect the grassroots and consider endorsing someone else?”
Dave Peters, chairman of the La Plata County GOP and also the chair of the 3rd District Republican assembly, said he also disagrees with the party’s move to endorse a candidate. He said he and other committee members will be letting Williams know about it.
Williams is also running to represent the 5th Congressional District, which is in El Paso County.
☀️ READ MORE
“Overall, I’m generally supportive of the state chair,” he said. “We will tell Dave Williams that we strongly advise him to remain neutral on all candidates, at least within CD3, prior to the primary.”
Michelle Gray, chairwoman of the Pueblo County GOP, also opposes the endorsements. “I believe in the primary. And I believe in the neutrality of the primary,” she told The Sun.
Endorsing candidates in the primary is a first for the GOP, said state Sen. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs. He gathered signatures to make the Republican primary ballot in Senate District 10 and faces two primary opponents nominated at assembly. But Liston noted that the nearly 1,300 valid signatures he gathered by going door-to-door put him in contact with far more voters than the roughly 100 who went to the district assembly.
“It’s only divisive and shouldn’t be done,” Liston said of the GOP’s plan to endorse candidates in the primary. He said Williams and others “hate the petition process, because they don’t have control over who makes the ballot. It’s a lot more work to petition on than to go to a county assembly.”
Why party endorsements are a rarity
Colorado Democrats don’t endorse candidates in primaries. And University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket said it’s a national rarity for parties to endorse one candidate over another in a primary.
“Most of the time when that happens, it’s under really unusual circumstances,” Masket said. “Even if party leaders have a preference, they usually don’t want to overtly state it like that. Because it makes a lot of enemies in the party. It drives people out.”
The Colorado GOP decided in the fall to amend its bylaws to allow endorsements of candidates who go through the assembly process and opposition to those who gather signatures. Then, last month, delegates to the state assembly approved a resolution allowing such endorsements.
The GOP endorsed U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in the 4th Congressional District after she was the only candidate to qualify for the ballot at the district’s nominating assembly. She faces five opponents, all of whom gathered signatures to make the ballot.
One of Boebert’s 4th District Republican opponents, state Rep. Richard Holtorf of Akron, on Wednesday reiterated his call for Williams to resign, saying the party should stay out of candidate endorsements.
“The COGOP and Chair Williams are completely out of line,” Holtorf wrote in a statement. “Voters want to vote, not be told for whom to vote by the state party.
Williams, who didn’t respond to Colorado Sun messages seeking comment, told Republicans gathered at a virtual town hall meeting Tuesday morning that the resolution passed in the fall allows party leaders to “endorse every assembly candidate, endorse maybe only one of them, or none of them.”
But one person who said he was an assembly delegate told Williams during Tuesday’s meeting that the policy is tantamount to a “hidden endorsement of Dave Williams and Lauren Boebert,” both of whom were the only nominees from the assembly process in their districts.
“It was contrived. And I completely object to it,” the delegate said. “We should not be endorsing any Republican candidates prior to the primary.”
8th Congressional District objections
The move is also controversial in the 8th Congressional District, where state Rep. Gabe Evans and former state Rep. Janak Joshi each made the Republican primary ballot through the district’s nominating assembly with 62% and 30% of the delegate vote, respectively.
“Grassroots Republicans spoke loud and clear when they gave me a 62% victory at the CD8 assembly,” Evans posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “That’s the endorsement that matters to me. The State GOP should not interfere in Republican primaries. Therefore, I will not be seeking the endorsement of a handful of Colorado Republican Party bosses who live outside my district.”
Sherrie Peif, who chairs the 8th District assembly, said she also told Williams she won’t participate in the endorsement process.
“Ethically we’re put in charge of running these districts so that the candidates inside those districts get a fair assembly and fair representation, and that the process is managed with neutrality,” Peif said. “So how does it benefit me to come out and endorse one of the two guys running?”
The 22 questions posed to candidates on the party’s endorsement questionnaire include ones asking whom they voted for in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and whether they’ve ever been registered to another party, voted for a Democrat or made political donations to one. There are also yes or no questions on closing primaries to unaffiliated voters, a federal ban on abortion and whether schools or parents “should provide or encourage transgender reassignment treatment to minors.”
The questionnaire also asks Republican candidates if they will “denounce” Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political nonprofit that is supporting Williams’ opponent in the 5th Congressional District, Jeff Crank, a conservative commentator and AFP official. Crank made the ballot via petition signatures.
AFP is also backing Evans, as well as Grand Junction attorney Jeff Hurd, one of the Republicans running in the crowded 3rd District Republican primary.
“If you’re a genuine grassroots candidate, rest assured that this questionnaire is entirely free from controversy,” GOP Vice Chairwoman Hope Scheppelman wrote in an email accompanying the questionnaire.
Got a question about Election 2024 in Colorado?
Submit your inquiry about this year’s elections to The Sun’s politics team. We’ll be answering them through election season.