Colorado GOP leader Dave Williams’ brash style, party spending come under fire from fellow Republicans
The Republican Occasion in Colorado is having a disaster of confidence, going through rising calls from inside for Chairman Dave Williams to step down following a raucous GOP meeting final weekend and, within the days that adopted, bitter infighting in full view.
Huerfano County Republican management in southern Colorado this week signed a letter demanding Williams “instantly resign his place,” whereas state lawmaker and congressional candidate Richard Holtorf mentioned the identical.
In an Japanese Plains stronghold, Yuma County Republicans took to Fb to lambaste the state get together for endorsing sure GOP candidates as a transfer that “undermines the electoral course of inside our get together.” The endorsees embody U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in her run for the 4th Congressional District, after she secured the highest line on the meeting.
Nonetheless others expressed alarm after get together officers ejected a Colorado Solar political reporter from the get together meeting in Pueblo on Saturday due to Williams’ perception that the reporter’s protection of Republicans had been “very unfair.” He later instructed Colorado Politics that he would’ve prohibited The Denver Submit and 9News from overlaying the meeting, too.
Within the face of all of the criticism, the get together below Williams has doubled down.
On its official account on the social media platform X, the state GOP went after Republican officeholders and candidates who criticized Williams, calling 4th District congressional candidate Deborah Flora a “dishonest, say-anything” politician after she protested the get together’s removing of the reporter from the venue. State Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, a outstanding determine from Brighton, caught hearth from the get together on the identical concern.
“What’s disgusting is your shameless boot licking of the corrupted faux information media that pushes propaganda for Democrats,” learn the state get together’s reply to Kirkmeyer’s X publish.
Kirkmeyer, who holds a strong publish on the Joint Price range Committee, mentioned in an interview that Williams was being a “bully.”
“You shouldn’t be making an attempt to intimidate individuals,” she mentioned. “We’re speculated to be making an attempt to incorporate individuals in our get together, not making an attempt to push them out.”
Former state GOP chair Dick Wadhams mentioned the turmoil on the high of the get together — and the internecine warfare inside — was “unprecedented.”
He positioned the blame squarely on the shoulders of Williams, who took the helm of the state GOP in March 2023 for a two-year time period. Wadhams referred to as Williams, a former state lawmaker who’s now working for Colorado’s open fifth Congressional District seat, “amoral and corrupt.”
“He’s solely involved about one factor — and that’s his private ambitions,” Wadhams mentioned. “We’ve by no means seen this earlier than. I can’t imagine it. We have now a cesspool within the management of the Colorado Republican Occasion.”
Williams didn’t reply to a number of questions despatched to him by The Submit this week.
However state Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, thinks Williams “has accomplished a reasonably good job as state get together chair.”
“He’s raised cash,” Soper instructed The Submit. “He has positively been the thorn within the facet of Democrats, which is what a state get together chair has to do.”
Occasion fundraising has lagged at instances below Williams, and this yr Colorado Democrats have crowed that their fundraising in January and February dwarfed that of the GOP by not less than an element of two.
The intraparty criticism of Williams comes at a time when the Republican Occasion has for years lagged in state elections up and down the poll, leading to immediately’s Democratic dominance in Colorado. Democrats maintain the governor’s workplace and vast majorities within the state legislature whereas occupying most seats within the state’s congressional delegation.
Soper served with Williams within the Home, the place Williams “was in all probability considered one of our most expert bomb-throwers,” he mentioned. That willingness to frustrate, insult and tweak is Williams’ “nice power,” in Soper’s view.
Williams’ weak spot, although, “is himself” and his tendency to “march ahead till he will get the reply he needs.”
“I assume from Dave Williams’ perspective, pushing out sure members throughout the get together is OK since you’re type of cleansing home,” Soper mentioned. “I really feel like once we’re this far within the minority, that’s difficult to do. My complete plea to the state get together is (that) I need assistance — I would like extra Republicans down right here within the trenches preventing for us. On the finish of the day, I don’t actually care how we do it.”
Soper, too, got here in for the get together’s scorn earlier this week, after he posted his disagreement with barring the reporter from the meeting on X. The get together’s account replied: “The faux information media received’t such as you extra if you happen to suck as much as them, Matt.”
Marketing campaign finance grievance filed
For Kelly Maher, a longtime Colorado Republican strategist, the objections transcend Williams’ conduct on the Pueblo meeting final weekend, the place some within the get together additionally took concern with coverage and platform votes that went Williams’ approach.
Final week, Maher filed a grievance with the Federal Election Fee in opposition to Williams, alleging he improperly used state get together monies to assist his congressional marketing campaign.
Particularly, she claimed that Williams spent greater than $16,000 in state get together funds in February to supply and mail a flyer to voters in El Paso County concentrating on a main opponent within the fifth District race, Jeff Crank. Maher’s grievance referred to as the mailer a “poorly veiled” assault on then-presidential contender Nikki Haley however famous that the piece principally focused Crank and a political motion committee that had endorsed him — a transfer she mentioned violated federal marketing campaign finance legal guidelines.
“He’ll burn the Republican Occasion to the bottom in his singular purpose of attending to Congress,” Maher mentioned in an interview. “He can’t accomplish his objectives with out cannibalizing everybody else.”
4 years in the past, Colorado’s unaffiliated voters — by far the most important chunk of the citizens — backed President Joe Biden by 25 share factors over then-President Donald Trump, in response to an exit ballot taken on the time.
That gulf means Republicans can ill-afford to be coaching their ire on one another, mentioned Kristi Burton Brown, Williams’ predecessor as GOP chair.
“After we are attacking our personal conservatives, the purpose of rising the get together is actually exhausting to attain,” she mentioned.
Burton Brown additionally mentioned the endorsement of GOP candidates throughout the main season — Trump obtained his personal blessing from the state get together again in January, forward of the Iowa caucuses and Colorado’s March 15 presidential main — is probably counterproductive.
“It’s speculated to be a impartial physique that opens up election pathways for Republicans,” she mentioned of the state get together. “Anytime the get together picks and chooses candidates in a race, it offers voters the looks of backroom offers.”
Holtorf, the state consultant from Akron who’s working for former U.S. Rep. Ken Buck’s seat, lashed Williams for the get together’s endorsement of Boebert this week within the crowded GOP main race and referred to as for him to step down.
Holtorf made the June 25 main poll on Wednesday after state election officers deemed that he had gathered sufficient signatures within the district, as did one other Republican contender, state Rep. Mike Lynch. Boebert and Flora had certified for the first poll through petition final month, and different contenders might make the poll, too.
“My imaginative and prescient of the Republican Occasion is (that) it’s the Republican Occasion of the Reagan period,” Holtorf mentioned. “It’s an enormous tent. The purity take a look at … that’s being promoted by the papacy of the Republican Occasion below Dave Williams’ management is just not the course we have to go. We have to rebuild our get together. We have to welcome all people again.”
“Changing into Republican once more”
Williams has additionally run into criticism from fellow Republicans for his want to shut GOP primaries to all however affiliated get together voters, a stance Wadhams calls “dumbfounding.”
The state get together sued Secretary of State Jena Griswold final summer season in federal court docket, searching for to invalidate a poll measure handed by voters in 2016 that opened up Colorado’s political primaries to unaffiliated voters. A choose rejected the get together’s declare in February. The get together’s central committee has didn’t clear the excessive threshold wanted to decide out of primaries — regardless of persevering with stress from Williams and others within the get together, together with ultimately week’s meeting.
Senate Minority Chief Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, mentioned his job is to counter the Democratic surge in Colorado by supporting Republicans in swing districts and conservative districts.
“I’m making an attempt to draw as many individuals to the Republican model as potential,” Lundeen mentioned. “That features conservatives and unaffiliated. (Williams is) gonna do what he’s gonna do.”
And Williams doing what he does is strictly what Rep. Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs Republican, needs to proceed seeing.
“For fairly a number of years, we now have simply been getting an increasing number of liberal and an increasing number of center of the highway — extra of an institution mentality — and it was hurting us,” mentioned Bottoms, a freshman lawmaker who’s among the many most conservative within the Capitol. “Simply because they’ve an ‘R’ after their title doesn’t imply they’re Republicans. We’re beginning to see these (voter) rolls turned again round to the place individuals are turning into Republican once more.”
When he first ran for workplace two years in the past, Bottoms mentioned, he was instructed to tone down his anti-abortion beliefs. He praised Williams for embracing his place on the problem from the get together chair place.
However Wadhams, the previous get together chair, mentioned the anemic turnout on the Republican meeting in Pueblo — simply 2,100 or so delegates out of three,500 invited confirmed up, he mentioned — was a flashing crimson mild that new management was wanted.
There isn’t a technique to construct a “successful coalition” by alienating individuals, Wadhams mentioned, particularly from throughout the get together.
“It’s a hollowing out of the get together,” he mentioned. “The Democrats have a stranglehold on the state like they haven’t had for the reason that Nineteen Thirties.”
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