Dick Wadhams
After 16 months of chaos, divisiveness, hate and financial abuse in the Colorado Republican Party, the regime of Dave Williams was emphatically rejected by the voters who know him best.
It was Williams himself who made the Republican primary in the 5th Congressional District a referendum on the wreckage he has wrought on the state party as its chair.
Despite saying he would not run for Congress in 2024 after being elected state chairman last year, he not only reneged on this pledge but he refused to resign as state chairman. He unethically funneled state party funds to finance direct attacks on his victorious opponent, Jeff Crank, who annihilated Williams by a 2-to-1 margin.
Violating more than 100 years of strict neutrality by the state party in competitive primaries, Williams endorsed himself in the 5th CD along with three carpetbaggers who moved into districts where they had no personal or political ties.
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Williams and the state party endorsed stolen-election conspiracist and carpetbagger Ron Hanks in the 3rd Congressional District. Hanks moved to Grand Junction despite being a resident of Fremont County, which is not in the district. They endorsed former state Rep. Janek Joshi of Colorado Springs in the 8th Congressional District. Joshi moved to Thornton in the district just a few months ago. Both of them lost.
The ultimate carpetbagger to be endorsed was U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who abandoned the 3rd CD in the face of almost certain defeat in 2024 after barely being reelected in 2022 in a 9-point Republican district. Despite having strong advantages in fundraising and name ID as an incumbent member of Congress, Boebert won with an unimpressive 43% against five challengers. So 57% of voters in 4th CD said no to Boebert, who was endorsed by Williams and the state party.
Emerging from these primaries are three strong Republican nominees who represent the future of Colorado Republicans once the party extracts itself from the stench of the Williams regime.
5th CD nominee Jeff Crank, 3rd CD nominee Jeff Hurd and 8th CD nominee Gabe Evans have outstanding personal and professional backgrounds that make them not only strong candidates to win in November, but they also will serve with dignity as new members of Congress.
Rep. Boebert has the opportunity to redefine her service from a comedic sideshow when she screamed at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address in the U.S. House chamber, or when she embarrassed her constituents with inappropriate behavior at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Adding to the chaos in the state party was the revelation last week one of the three elected members from Colorado on the Republican National Committee, attorney Randy Corporon, is being sued by a 66-year old woman for allegedly wiring $375,000 of the woman’s money to a hacker in Hong Kong.
Corporon has used his weekly KNUS radio talk show to promote outlandish conspiracy theories the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. He is also being sued for defamation by an executive of Dominion Voting Systems, which Corporon claims was one of the main culprits in stealing the election.
Corporon and criminally indicted John Eastman were hired by Williams to try to overturn Proposition 108, which allows unaffiliated voters, who represent nearly half of Colorado’s electorate, to vote in partisan primary elections. A Denver federal judge soundly rejected the Williams-Corporon-Eastman lawsuit.
But apparently Williams will try again later this summer to cancel future Republican primary elections, which would deny more than 900,000 Republicans from voting in primary elections. Williams would confer the power to nominate candidates to just a few thousand party activists who presumably share his narrow ideological agenda.
The list of abuses and embarrassing antics by Williams and his state party cohorts goes on and on but it appears many members of the Colorado Republican State Central Committee, the 400-member body that elects state party officers, have finally had enough.
A petition has been submitted to Williams signed by more than the required 25% of the committee to hold a special meeting to vote on the removal of Williams as state chairman, which ultimately requires 60%.
This provision to remove a state chairman has never been used in the more than 100-year history of the Colorado Republican State Central Committee. But then, there has never been a chairman who has so thoroughly violated state party bylaws not to mention basic political ethics.
The voters of El Paso County and the 5th CD soundly rejected Williams and his abusive “leadership” last week. The Colorado Republican State Central Committee should do the same so that new leaders such as Jeff Crank, Jeff Hurd and Gabe Evans can restore some credibility to Colorado Republicans.
Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican State Chairman who worked for U.S. Sen Bill Armstrong for nine years before managing campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, Gov. Bill Owens, and U.S. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.