Williams’ brash style comes under fire

The Republican Party in Colorado is having a crisis of confidence, facing increasing calls from within for Chairman Dave Williams to step down following a raucous GOP assembly last weekend and, in the days that followed, bitter infighting in full view.

Huerfano County Republican leadership in southern Colorado

this week signed a letter demanding Williams “immediately resign his position,” while state lawmaker and congressional candidate Richard Holtorf said the same.

In an Eastern Plains stronghold, Yuma County Republicans took to Facebook to lambaste the state party for endorsing certain GOP candidates as a move that “undermines the electoral process within our party.” The endorsees include U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in her run for the 4th Congressional

District, after she secured the top line at the assembly.

Still others expressed alarm after party officials ejected a Colorado Sun political reporter from the party assembly in Pueblo on Saturday because of Williams’ belief that the reporter’s coverage of Republicans had been “very unfair.” He later told Colorado Politics that he would’ve prohibited The Denver Post and 9News from covering the assembly, too.

In the face of all the criticism, the party under 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, sayanything” politician after she protested the party’s removal of the reporter from the venue. State Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, a prominent figure from Brighton, caught fire from the party on the same issue.

“What’s disgusting is your shameless boot licking of the corrupted fake news media that pushes propaganda for Democrats,” read the state party’s reply to Kirkmeyer’s X post.

Former state GOP chair Dick Wadhams said the turmoil at the top of the party — and the internecine warfare within — was “unprecedented.”

He placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Williams, who took the helm of the state GOP in March 2023 for a two-year term.