Colorado GOP Chairwoman Brita Horn will resign from her position next month, leaving the state party without a leader — and potentially saddled with major debts — about six months before Election Day.
Horn’s resignation, announced Thursday evening, will take effect April 17, about a week after Republicans gather in Pueblo for their state assembly and roughly a year after her term began.
Her term was slated to last through March 2027.
Horn wrote in a letter announcing her resignation that she was stepping down with “great sorrow.”
“Over the past year, we have endured threats of violence, blackmail attempts and continued efforts to fracture our party further,” Horn said. “I have done my best to set those issues aside and focus on what truly matters: building a stronger, more united party and helping elect more Republicans. However, under the continued threat of further division, legal attacks and escalation within our party, it has become clear that those intent on prolonging this conflict will not stop.”
Earlier this month, 79% of the party’s central committee voted that they had no confidence in Horn. It was the second no-confidence vote. In late February, during a meeting Horn called illegal, about 90% voted that they had no confidence in her.
The chairwoman was initially defiant in the face of the growing opposition.
“Our party remains deeply divided,” she said in a written statement after the March no-confidence vote. “I was elected to this office on a platform of finding unity and have thus far been unsuccessful. While there are certainly members of our State Central Committee who do not share the goal of unity, I believe the majority of them do. As the leader of this organization, it falls on me to refocus this organization on mending that divide.”
But by the end of this week, she had decided to step aside.
Horn’s tenure as chairwoman has been marked by controversy.
Two party vice chairs have resigned since she took the helm, citing an inability to work with her. The party has also struggled to fundraise under her leadership and racked up major legal debts.
The legal costs stemmed from a case originally brought last year by the party, when it was led by then-Chairman Dave Williams, against Horn and a group of other Republicans who sought to depose him ahead of the 2024 election. When Horn became chair, she sought to dismiss the lawsuit. But a group loyal to Williams tried to keep it alive, though they were ultimately rebuffed by the court.
The Colorado GOP racked up about $150,000 in attorneys fees successfully working to end the case. It then sought to recover those costs from Williams’ allies.
But El Paso County District Court Judge Amanda Philipps ruled against the party Feb. 17 in a major blow.
“The court cannot find that any one participant prolonged this litigation more than any other such that it is appropriate to issue sanctions,” Philipps wrote in her ruling. “(Everyone) participated in prolonging this litigation in the seven months since the notice of dismissal was filed. The record before the court is that the parties and non-parties alike are stubbornly litigious.”
The party has struggled to fundraise in large part because of its legal debt and even had to take out a line of credit to address cash flow problems.
The party won’t have to file its next campaign finance report with the Federal Election Commission until mid-April, so it’s not clear if it will be able to pay off the debt before Horn leaves office.
Neither Alec Hanna, the party’s executive director, nor Horn immediately responded Friday to a request for comment on the party’s financial situation.
The party started the year with about $76,000 in the bank and $166,823 in outstanding debts.
The Colorado Democratic Party reported raising about $100,000 into its federal account in January alone and spending about $85,000, starting February with nearly $200,000 in the bank. It reported no debts.
The Colorado GOP’s central committee will have to gather in the spring to pick a new chair. That leader will have only a few months to try to set Republicans on a winning path heading into the election in November, which will determine whether the party can regain a foothold in Colorado politics after nearly a decade of defeat.