The Colorado Republican who ran four unsuccessful congressional races across three election cycles in the last decade wants to run the state GOP.

Casper Stockham, who finished third in the Republicans’ state chair race in 2021, announced on Wednesday that he’s making another run for the job, saying he wants to change the way voters think about the GOP by focusing less on winning elections and more on building community across the state.

“The party has lost its purpose,” Stockham told Colorado Politics. “The new purpose of the party should be to help more people. If we help more people, we will get more people leaning into us, we will get more people wanting to be a part of the party, so our numbers will grow.”

Added Stockham: “We need to change our mindset from getting more Republicans elected to helping more people, because helping more people will get more Republicans elected.”

The Aurora resident and Air Force veteran is the first to declare a candidacy for the state chair position, which will be chosen by the state Republican Party’s central committee in late March.

The Colorado GOP is reeling after a historic sweep by Democrats in the November election, which left Republicans with fewer elected offices at the state and federal level than the party has held for nearly a century.

State party chair Kristi Burton Brown said last week that she’ll announce by the end of the month whether she intends to seek a second two-year term leading the GOP.

Other potential candidates for the party’s top job include outgoing Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, former congressional candidate Erik Aadland, former gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez and outgoing state Rep. Dave Williams, R-Colorado Springs.

Stockham’s proposals for revamping the state party include canceling the GOP’s participation in Colorado’s semi-open primary system, which lets unaffiliated voters cast ballots in either major party’s primary. Republicans have twice attempted to opt out of the system in recent years but both times fell short of the required 75% vote of the state central committee.

Stockham was among the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that sought to block unaffiliated voters from participating in this year’s Republican primary, but a federal judge in April denied their request for an injunction.

Stockham twice lost bids to unseat U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, in 2016 and 2018, in the heavily Democratic, Denver-based 1st Congressional District. He lost a 2020 run against U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter in the 7th Congressional District in the Jefferson and Adams county suburbs after switching to that race following a brief candidacy in the Aurora-based 6th Congressional District.

On the heels of his most recent congressional loss, Stockham and other former candidates launched a nonprofit organization to recruit and train conservative candidates he said weren’t getting support from state Republicans. He was also appointed to the state GOP’s executive committee, which functions like a board of directors for the state party.

In May 2021, Stockham acknowledged in an agreement with the Federal Election Commission that he violated federal campaign finance laws and regulations by converting campaign funds to personal use and failing to accurately report campaign expenditures in his 2020 congressional run.

According to an FEC report, Stockham directed more than $38,000 in campaign funds to a company he owns, improperly spent campaign money on household expenses and used a campaign account to cover costs incurred by his ride-share business driving for Lyft and Uber.

Under the agreement Stockham signed with the federal agency, an initial $23,300 fine imposed by the FEC was reduced to a $2,400 civil penalty – payable over two years in monthly $100 installments – after Stockham pleaded financial hardship. He was also ordered to participate in an online candidate training program sponsored by the commission.

“We came to an agreement, and as far as I’m concerned, the issue is closed,” Stockham said last year after Colorado Politics obtained a copy of the agreement. “I have to pay a small fine, take a class, and I can run again.”

Stockham was among a dozen speakers who made a case last week for new party leadership at an event held in a parking lot across the street from state GOP headquarters by Republicans who claim to represent the GOP’s base and grassroots members.

He told Colorado Politics his approach stood out at the 90-minute press conference, where most of the featured speakers hurled insults at Burton Brown and the party establishment, including blaming them for muzzling Republicans who wanted to talk about former President Donald Trump’s false contention that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“I was the only person talking about unity – the only one,” Stockham said. “And I’m really the only one who can actually unify (the party), because I can talk to the folks that were at that press conference, I can talk with the tea party, I can talk with liberty groups, and I can have a meaningful conversation with the establishment.”

Stockham’s party chair campaign is built around several acronyms and sets of initials, including OUST – outreach, unity, support and training – and PMI, which he said stands for the problems the party needs to fix, its purpose, messaging and image.

OUST, Stockham noted, also suggests “ousting the leadership or ousting the mentality, the old-guard mentality of the party. I think that’s is part of the challenge with us moving forward as a Republican Party. We’re not attracting youth, we’re not attracting enough minorities into the party.”

That’s where his proposal to focus state party efforts on outreach comes in, he added.

“I know if we start now with the outreach, we will have measurable results come election time,” he said. “Republicans believe outreach starts 90 days before the election, and they call it get out the vote, but the Democrats’ version never stops – it’s like 24/7.

“That’s what we have to start doing is showing up during non-election cycles doing outreach things like helping in the community, going to homeless shelters and doing food drives and helping people – start showing that we care just like everybody else cares. We start doing that, wearing our T-shirts, and over time people will start having a little bit different opinion about Republicans.”

Stockham said his losing record in Colorado elections equips him for leading the embattled state party out of the doldrums.

“No Republican has won in Colorado for many years, so I have the same track record as just about anybody else who could run,” he said. “You name a Republican, and they’ve lost.”

Stockham said his string of defeats gives him a necessary perspective.

“I look at those as experiences I can bring to this office because I know what it’s like to be a candidate with no support from the party. I know what it’s like to be slighted by the party you’re trying to run under,” he said. “Erik or Tina or Greg or anybody else out there running, they don’t have any wins either. Right now, there’s not a whole lot of wins anywhere in the party.”