Over the next several weeks, the Colorado Republican Party will make consequential decisions that will determine just how relevant it will be in 2026 and beyond.

The 600-member Colorado Republican State Central Committee will meet on May 30 to elect a new state chair following the resignation of Brita Horn. The Colorado Republican Primary Election will be held one month later on June 30 to nominate a candidate for governor along with other local, state and federal offices.

Dangerous choices loom in both elections.

The state party has been in complete chaos since the insidious tenure of Dave Williams from 2023 to 2025. His successor, the well-intentioned Horn, was bogged down by constant legal battles with allies of Williams who harken for the glory days of abuse of scarce party funds to defeat Republicans who Williams deemed not pure enough.

None of the state chair candidates appear to understand the realities of the Colorado electorate in 2026, where 51% of voters are registered unaffiliated while 24% are Democrats and only 22% are Republicans.  

They seem oblivious to the fact President Donald Trump is deeply unpopular in Colorado with those unaffiliated voters. Republican candidates start out with two strikes against them in any competitive campaign.  

They wallow in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen from Trump and how disgraced, convicted Tina Peters should be immediately released from prison.  

They are intent on stealing the right of unaffiliateds to vote in Republican primaries and even support canceling the 2028 primary altogether thereby disenfranchising 900,000 registered Republicans and more than 2 million unaffiliateds.

But Joe Oltmann stands out as the most cringeworthy state chair candidate who would tar the entire party with his anti-Semitic, violent rhetoric.

Even beyond his wild conspiracy theories about stolen elections, Oltmann literally advocates the execution of elected officials of Jewish descent. He says Democrats Gov. Jared Polis, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, Attorney General Phil Weiser, Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Republican Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubenstein are members of the “Synagogue of Satan” and should be tried before military tribunals and hanged.

Meanwhile, the Republican primary for governor features two candidates who are way outside the mainstream of Colorado voters.

State Rep. Scott Bottoms has virtually nothing to show for his four years in the state House other than passing a license plate bill. But on top of stolen-election conspiracies and his stalwart defense of imprisoned Tina Peters, he claims to have uncovered a deep conspiracy of pedophile rings who operate throughout the state Capitol.

Conveniently, Bottoms refuses to release his “proof” of these pedophile rings until after he is elected governor in November. He admitted during the Channel 7 debate he could not prove his allegations.

Colorado Springs pastor Victor Marx has raised $2.2 million, but he has already spent all but $500,000 of that total. Marx refuses to debate his opponents and he only campaigns in tightly scripted events in front of his passionate supporters who see him as some kind of political messiah.

Marx has already had to backtrack on details of his hazy personal and professional backgrounds that are filled with claims such as “saving” or “rescuing” 45,000 women and children from war-torn countries and various tales of violent encounters.

The media and the Democratic campaign would have a field day picking apart a candidate who refuses to answer questions about his exotic claims.

It would be one thing if these three individuals were nothing more than isolated ideological sideshows on the far fringe of Colorado politics.  

But should Oltmann be elected state chair or should either Bottoms or Marx be nominated for governor, every Republican candidate for every office from county commissioner to state legislator and Congress will be tainted and undermined. 

Colorado Republicans are playing with fire with Marx, Bottoms and Oltmann. What is left of the party after eight years of total Democratic control would be burned down.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who managed 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 in 2004 when Thune unseated Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.