Colorado’s current GOP leaders declared victory after being defeated for the third time this year trying to keep independents from voting for their candidates, this time it was to opt out of the 2024 primary.
Locally elected members of the state central committee who met in Castle Rock on Saturday fell short of the legally required 75% to do so, in a vote of 259 to 143.
From The Gazette:
That outcome, said GOP Chairman Dave Williams, bolsters a lawsuit filed by the party in federal court seeking to overturn the voter-approved 2016 ballot measure that established the semi-open primary system, which allows Colorado’s nearly 2 million unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in either Republican or Democratic primary elections.
“We all understand that this kind of proves the point of the lawsuit, that the state has imposed upon the Republican Party an unconstitutional threshold, and the numbers bear that out,” Williams told Republicans after announcing the results.
Another supporter said a minority of the committee should not have that much sway over the party.
Ironically, the party wants to eliminate primary elections on the state level so that a minority of the party can consolidate power and pick which candidates get to run instead of allowing voters.
Kevin McCarney, a former Mesa County GOP chairman, said that canceling the state-run primary would disenfranchise the state’s nearly 1 million Republicans.
“You cannot, cannot take the vote away from the people — the Republican people who sent you here as representatives,” McCarney said, adding: “I am appalled at the contempt that this board had for rural Colorado — it is unbelievable.”
Instead of encouraging strong candidates to run for office, raising money and shoring up campaigns to get Republicans elected in this God forsaken, Democrat controlled state, this is what state party leaders have wasted their time on this year — blocking independent voters.
Many Republicans believe that if moderate Republicans independents were blocked from voting in GOP primaries, better candidates would be produced who could win elections.
For example, only 24% of voters are registered Republican, while 27% are Democrat and nearly half, 47% are independent.
According to their funky math, if only 24% of voters pick the candidate, and 74% don’t, that somehow produces a candidate who can get 51% of the total vote.
A few Republicans will insist that Democrats are voting in the GOP primary to fix the race by voting for the weakest GOP candidate.
And yet yet Democrats have such loathing for the GOP, most we can’t imagine any being caught dead voting Republican — even as a joke.
And there’s just no evidence as such, other than anecdotal, like my sisters’ boyfriend who has an aunt that knows a guy who was once married to a woman whose Democrat grandfather voted for Nixon because he thought Kennedy could beat him in ’68.
Republicans in this state have a lot more pressing issues than fixing primaries. Party leaders’ time would be better spent getting ready for next year’s elections.