It took nearly a year, but Colorado Republican Kristi Burton Brown has fulfilled one of the promises she made in her campaign for state GOP chair – visit every one of the state’s 64 counties during her first year in office.

Burton Brown completed the journey earlier this month with a stop in Pitkin County and commemorated the accomplishment with a video message recorded roadside in a snowstorm.

“It’s so good to be with Republicans across the state,” a smiling Burton Brown said in the video, raising her voice as traffic zoomed by behind her. “We’re going to have a red wave in 2022 as we campaign on the issues Coloradans care about: affordability and public safety and more education options for everyone. Let’s go win!”

State Republicans have been hammering the three topics as the 2022 midterm election approaches amid plunging approval ratings for President Joe Biden and hopes the GOP can recover this fall from a series of historic setbacks that have left the party with less power than it’s held in Colorado for generations.

Burton Brown won a two-year term as chair over former Secretary of State Scott Gessler and a handful of other hopefuls on March 27, 2021 and checked off the last county on the list on March 9. 

She’s been posting photos of her and fellow Republicans throughout the state regularly over the last year and has visited many counties numerous times, party officials said.

In a statement to Colorado Politics, Burton Brown said that, after completing her itinerary, she “can truly say that there is no greater state to call home than Colorado.”

Burton Brown is the first woman elected to head the state Republican Party since the 1970s.

Morgan Carroll, Burton Brown’s counterpart heading the Colorado Democratic Party, told Colorado Politics last summer that she’d already visited every county more than once during her tenure as state chair and looked forward to hitting the road again as pandemic restrictions eased.

Joe Jackson, the state GOP’s executive director, said in an email that he is “proud to work for someone who keeps her promises and works every day to elect candidates who will make Colorado better.”

Morgan County Republican Chairman Dusty A. Johnson said Burton Brown’s commitment to keeping her word makes her a good role model.

“I have lost count (as the number exceeds how high I can count using both hands) of how many times you and Joe have visited us out here in the northeast, and thanks to your many visits we feel that our rural voice is heard and valued within the party,” Johnson said in a statement, adding that she is a friend of rural Colorado and always welcome.

Saying it would be “next to impossible” to lead the Larimer County Republicans without Burton Brown’s leadership, county GOP Chairman Ron Weinberg thanked her for showing up.

“I am grateful and appreciative that she always shows up to support our Republicans and candidates,” he said.