Though Democrats largely maintained their historic stranglehold on Colorado, Republicans won some key victories even in the face of a destructive and incompetent state GOP leadership that tried to defeat those Republican winners.

U.S. Rep.-elect Gabe Evans ran an impressive campaign in the 8th Congressional District that unseated U.S. Rep. Yadira Caravejo in one of the hardest-fought, most competitive congressional seats in the nation. Since Republicans will probably control the U.S. House of Representatives by a mere 220 to 215, the national importance of this upset win by Evans cannot be understated.

U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd beat back the massive war chest of challenger Adam Frisch in the 3rd Congressional District. Frisch raised millions in 2022 when he came within 524 votes of unseating the controversial U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, and his fundraising continued unabated even after Boebert fled the 3rd and relocated to the much more heavily Republican 4th Congressional District.

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U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Crank, a longtime conservative leader, won a convincing victory in the Republican-dominated 5th Congressional District after U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn retired after 18 years in Congress.

The Colorado congressional delegation is now 4-4 after Democrats enjoyed a 5-3 majority when the 8th CD was created in 2022.

The common thread with each of these victories for Evans, Hurd and Crank is the leadership of the 400-member Colorado Republican State Central Committee (CRC) under its chairman, Dave Williams, actively opposed them in their congressional primaries and then did absolutely nothing to support them in the general election.

Williams and the CRC broke more than 100 years of strict party neutrality in competitive primaries and endorsed stolen-election conspiracy candidates against Evans, Hurd and Crank and spent party funds to attack them. Williams endorsed himself in the 5th CD and spent more than $80,000 in CRC funds attacking Crank. Williams massively lost by a 2-to-1 margin.

Had the conspiracists won their primaries in the 3rd CD and 8th CD, they would have been sure losers in the general election. And Williams would have made the 5th CD — which has been Republican controlled since its creation in 1972 — a competitive race where one has never existed before.

Though Democrats still have massive majorities in the state legislature, they no longer have a super-majority in the House of Representatives and they were denied such a super-majority in the state Senate. Republicans picked up three seats in the state House, closing the gap from 46-to-19 to 43-to-22, and they maintained the 23-to-12 margin in the Senate.

Much credit goes to Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen and House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, who led the candidate recruitment and raised the money to support these legislative candidates. And they accomplished this with absolutely no help from Williams and the CRC.

As destructive as Williams and the CRC were in their primary challenges against eventual Republican congressional winners, their incompetence in failing to fund a statewide turnout operation to support Republican candidates at all levels is breathtaking and unprecedented.

Colorado Republicans have historically built and funded what they call a Victory operation that works with county parties and candidates at all levels to maximize Republican turnout. The Victory operation turned out 106,000 more Republicans than Democrats in 2010 when two Democratic statewide incumbents and two Democratic congressional incumbents were unseated and a majority was won in the state House. More than 110,000 more Republicans than Democrats voted in 2014, when U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner unseated U.S. Sen. Mark Udall and Republicans won a majority in the state senate.

There was no Victory operation in 2024.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) had no confidence in Williams and the CRC and routed its substantial financial support for Evans and Hurd through the Arizona Republican Party because it did not trust Williams and the CRC. 

It is no wonder no previous state chairman has ever been treated with such disrespect.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy created the Protect the House 2024 PAC in 2023 that raised money for state parties where Republican congressional incumbents faced tough challenges. At the time, Boebert was still running in the 3rd CD and McCarthy routed $255,000 in contributions to Colorado to help Boebert who later moved to the safer 4th CD.

Not one dime of that $255,000 was spent helping Hurd or Evans. For that matter, not one dime period was spent by Williams and the CRC to support their campaigns.

Republican congressional and state legislative victories were not only in the face of Vice President Kamala Harris carrying Colorado by 11 points over President-elect Donald Trump, these hard-fought wins were also despite a destructive and incompetent state party that did everything it could to defeat those eventual Republican winners.

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 and Gov. Bill Owens.  He was campaign manager for U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota when Thune unseated Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in 2004.