El Paso County Republican Chair Vickie Tonkins won her bid to lead the county party for two more years on Saturday in Colorado Springs, capping a contentious election that featured lawsuits, a threatened restraining order, an unprecedented intervention by the Colorado GOP and charges that both sides were damaging the Republican brand in the state’s largest county.

Tonkins won in a secret ballot, 244-193, over retired Air Force colonel and longtime party volunteer Bill Weiford at the county GOP reorganization meeting at Discovery Canyon Elementary School in Northgate.

The biennial party election was conducted under the supervision of former Fremont County GOP chair Gregory Carlson, who was tapped to oversee the meeting by the state GOP late last month in response to complaints from local Republicans who argued that Tonkins couldn’t be counted on to run a fair election.

On the eve of Saturday’s meeting, Tonkins abandoned plans to hold a competing election across town and instead instructed members of the county party central committee to show up at the meeting organized by Carlson and sanctioned by the state Republicans.

Before Tonkins shifted tactics, county Republicans faced the prospects of two meetings, whose organizers planned to elect two rival sets of officers, with both contending theirs was the only one that would count while blasting the other as illegitimate.

Her followed a court ruling late Thursday dismissing a lawsuit filed by Tonkins and a handful of El Paso County precinct officers, who claimed the state party lacked the authority to put someone else in charge of the county’s reorganization. At the same time, the district court judge declined to act on a request by Tonkins to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the meeting chaired by Carlson from taking place.

“I am proud to fight for our freedoms alongside you, shoulder to shoulder,” Tonkins told the assembled Republicans before the voting began. “Let’s take our lives back, let’s take our schools back, let’s take our economy back, let’s take our freedom back. We the people – let’s take our county back.”

Compared to the polite clapping that greeted her challengers, Tonkins’ speech was interrupted numerous times by thunderous applause and shouts of support.

After all the hullabaloo, Tonkins and her allies posted decisive wins, securing control of the sharply divided party.

The members of Tonkins’ slate of candidates prevailed by almost identical margins in the day’s other county officer elections.

Former U.S. Border Patrol agent Todd Watkins, who lost the Republican primary for county sheriff last summer, was elected county vice chair, 248-189, over Bill Baker, and Adriana Cuva defeated Brenda Miller in the race for party secretary, 249-188. All four candidates were making their first runs for county party office.

The results amount to a decisive blow against a loose-knit group of Tonkins critics, some of whom established a separate voter-contact operation last year amid allegations Tonkins and the county party were refusing to back Republican nominees they considered insufficiently Republican.

Tonkins didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but longtime ally former state Rep. Dave Williams, R-Colorado Springs, told Colorado Politics that Tonkins was “vindicated” by the results.

“The establishment and (state GOP chair Kristi Burton Brown) tried everything to tip the scales against the grassroots, and our county sent a loud message of rebuke against them,” Williams said in a text message. “Now the work begins to reform the State Party so that someone like KBB can’t violate any county’s autonomy again.”

Among the three current and former state lawmakers who nominated Tonkins – along with newly elected state Reps. Ken DeGraaf and Scott Bottoms, both Colorado Springs Republicans – Williams barely contained his contempt for Tonkins’ opponents during his brief remarks at the meeting.

“Vickie’s opponents say their main objectives are to unify the party and respect the bylaws, but they fail to mention they are the ones who sowed division while always running to the press to make our party look bad,” he told the Republicans.

As the room filled with cheers, Williams predicted that Tonkins’ detractors would fail to oust her.

“But the fact that they tried, I think, should be offensive to everyone,” he said to more cheers. “I’ve never seen these failed establishment insiders fight this hard against Democrats. What’s even worse is that they take opportunities to actually fight against you and your values.”

Added Williams: “For the first time, probably ever, the party is not being used to prop up politicians who pay lip service to our platform but end up working with corrupt Democrats.”

Karl Schneider, the county GOP’s outgoing vice chair and a persistent Tonkins critic – he called on her to resign as chair in late 2021 after Tonkins publicly attacked several local Republicans – lamented the day’s results.

“The ‘party’ may be radically ‘strong’ now but that will not resonate with the people,” he said in a text message to Colorado Politics. “We will continue the attrition of offices held, and our state will become more blue.”

He also said he wanted to stress that Carlson did a superb job running the meeting.

Burton Brown, who hails from El Paso County and attended Saturday’s meeting, extended congratulations to Tonkins after the results were announced.

“The state party’s position was that El Paso County needed a fair, safe election that everyone could trust,” she said in a text message. “The (state central committee), Gregory Carlson, and the court gave El Paso Republicans that chance, and the results should be respected.”