Republicans running in tight races across the state this year don’t expect to get the kind of help from the Colorado GOP that the party has offered in the past, a big deficit as conservatives try to claw their way back to political relevance.
They have good reasons for that assumption.
Fourteen of the 18 candidates the party endorsed this year in contested Republican primaries lost. Chairman Dave Williams used the party’s limited funds to pay for mailers to benefit his own failed congressional primary bid. And Williams hasn’t been seen much since his primary loss even as a movement to remove him as chair is underway.
“When you can get everybody in a boat, rowing in the same direction, that’s an ideal circumstance,” said Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican who is trying to prevent Democrats from expanding their already historic power in the legislature.
The Colorado GOP is “not even in the boat,” Lundeen said, so he is “moving on without them.”
“You’ve got to work with what you’ve got,” said Lundeen, who has called on Williams to resign.
The power of state parties across the nation has waned in recent decades as the flow of campaign dollars has shifted to political action committees. But parties still play an important role on the campaign trail. They help organize volunteers among multiple overlapping races, steer candidates to potential donors and amplify candidates’ messaging wherever possible.
“Not all candidates can afford a consultant and a team and all those things,” said Kristi Burton Brown, the former chairwoman of the Colorado GOP. “You sort of fill that gap as a state party.”
And Colorado Republicans could use all the help they can get in an election year where Republicans are trying to win back some power at the state and federal levels after years of defeat. The GOP almost certainly can’t win back majorities in Colorado, but it can bolster its ranks to be a more effective check on the Democratic juggernaut.
“Without a state party, a campaign is significantly harder to run,” said Nick Bayer, the campaign manager for Grand Junction attorney Jeff Hurd, a Republican running in a tight race in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. “There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.”
Bayer said Hurd’s campaign has received little help from the state party since Hurd won the six-way primary in the 3rd District. The Colorado GOP endorsed one of Hurd’s primary opponents — former state Rep. Ron Hanks, an election denier. Hurd joined Lundeen last week in a letter calling on Williams to resign.
Bayer said a functioning state party would be hiring staffers in the 3rd District to organize canvassers, sharing voter data, helping overlapping campaigns in the district coordinate volunteers and setting up joint fundraising committees.
“None of that’s happening,” said Bayer, who previously worked for the Massachusetts GOP.
Bayer said Hurd’s campaign is finding ways to fill the void on its own. Lundeen said the same.
“Of course I would prefer that every cylinder of the engine be firing perfectly,” Lundeen said. “But it doesn’t always work that way. And so what you do is you tune your engine so the cylinders you have are doing the best job they can, and you go out and win with that.”
Some Republican operatives told The Sun that even if the Colorado GOP were to offer fundraising help, they likely wouldn’t work with the party given how it spent money to benefit Williams’ candidacy. They’re also worried about being associated with the GOP’s controversies, including a homophobic email it sent out during Pride month calling for people to burn Pride flags.
Burton Brown, for instance, is running for a Colorado Board of Education seat this year. She says she hasn’t heard from the party and wouldn’t accept its help if it was offered.
“I have no interest in working with them whatsoever,” she said.
Even U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican firebrand who appeared to be an ally of Williams, has criticized Williams and the Colorado GOP for not being engaged enough in Republican campaigns.
“This isn’t about competing policies or ideologies,” she wrote on Facebook last week. “This is about a failure from chairman Williams to lead after our primary election and simply reach out to candidates and organizations throughout Colorado and beyond to offer support, mend bridges and present a clear game plan of how we can win together in November.”
Colorado House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican working to flip a list of House seats in November, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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Instead, Tyler Sandberg, a Republican consultant leading the House GOP caucus campaign arm, sent The Sun a statement saying “House Republicans are singularly focused on holding House Democrats accountable” and that “nothing will distract us.”
A spokesman for state Rep. Gabe Evans, a Fort Lupton Republican running in Colorado’s battleground 8th Congressional District, also declined to comment for this story. The race in the 8th District, which spans Denver’s northeast suburbs along U.S. 85 into Greeley, may decide which party controls Congress next year.
The Colorado GOP endorsed Evans’ opponent, former state Rep. Janak Joshi, in the 8th District Republican primary, and sent a mailer on Joshi’s behalf. Joshi lost to Evans, who also signed the letter last week calling on Williams to resign, by about 55 percentage points.
When the National Republican Congressional Committee last month held a celebration marking the opening of a campaign office in the district to help Evans, Williams was absent.
It was the kind of event that in the past, someone like Williams would almost certainly have attended — and even spoken at. But an NRCC spokeswoman said the organization didn’t even invite Williams to the gathering.
Williams didn’t respond to a message seeking comment this week. But Colorado GOP Vice Chair Hope Scheppelman forwarded The Sun two congratulatory emails she sent in early July to the campaigns of Republicans who won in the primaries and offering access to party data, donor contacts and volunteer training.
Scheppelman also shared an email Tuesday from Williams to Colorado GOP leaders calling efforts to oust him “shortsighted” and claimed many of the movement’s organizers have a personal vendetta against him.
“We are supporting ALL of our nominees with infrastructure, volunteers, get out the vote/data platforms, and even direct financial support in key targeted races,” Williams wrote. “Those saying otherwise are either lying or are ignorant to the facts.”
But the only direct spending reflected in the Colorado GOP’s campaign finance reports thus far have been to help Williams’ campaign and a $1,000 donation to Republican Greg Lopez’s special election campaign in the 4th Congressional District.
The reports filed thus far only reflect spending through June. The next report, for spending in July, isn’t due until Aug. 20. Party Treasurer Tom Bjorklund said the party’s filing for July would reflect money spent to help Joshi. He also highlighted how the party has signed a joint fundraising agreement with Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee that allows donors to write a single check to be distributed among participants.
Bjorklund said the party has no such joint fundraising agreements with any Colorado candidates yet.
“But we are reaching out,” he said.
Finally, Scheppelman said Williams was invited to the NRCC office opening but was out of state when it happened. Asked twice to provide evidence of that invitation, she stopped responding to The Sun.
The party did this week use its email list to distribute a flyer advertising a fundraiser for Evans and conservative commentator and activist Jeff Crank, the Republican who beat Williams in the 5th Congressional District primary. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, was a featured guest.
But the fundraiser was organized by a joint committee set up by Evans and Crank, not the Colorado GOP. And the gathering was supposed to be private.
The flyer shared by the party included the personal email addresses of the candidates’ fundraising consultants, as well as the exact time and location of the gathering. That prompted security concerns given that Scalise was gravely wounded in a shooting a few years ago in which members of the GOP congressional baseball team were targeted.
An Arapahoe County judge has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday morning to reconsider the temporary restraining order she issued preventing members of the Colorado GOP state central committee from holding a vote to oust Williams.
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