Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams won the support of his party delegates during a district assembly to qualify for the ballot in the 5th congressional district election to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn.
It’s no surprise that delegates who also voted for Williams last year to serve as chairman would also back his congressional race.
That’s why other top contenders for the seat took the alternate route to get on the ballot through the petition process with voters, which requires a minimum of 1,500 valid signatures.
Jeff Crank’s petitions have already been accepted and his name will appear on the ballot. Crank has run twice against Lamborn finishing in second place in both races.
State Sen. Bob Gardner just submitted his petition signatures last week and is awaiting word whether he has qualified.
Meanwhile, two other contenders who went the assembly route were knocked out of the race by Williams who secured 70% of party delegate support.
Army veteran Joshua Griffin came in second place and TABOR author Douglas Bruce came in third place.
Williams vowed to fight against the party establishment, which sounded weird coming from the chairman of the established party.
He also promised to drain the swamp. An interesting pledge coming from a man whose been up to his ass in alligators of late.
The delegates who turned out to support Williams weren’t dissuaded by the chairman’s use of official party resources and reports he’s spent tens of thousands of party donor dollars to give him an edge over other Republican Party members vying for the job.
Nor did they seem concerned about Williams’ family-owned company importing thousands of tons of plastic products from China over the past decade.
rColorado Politics reported from the assembly:
Assembly delegates were barraged on Saturday with texts and geographically targeted digital ads picturing Williams and Chinese leader Xi Jinping alongside a headline reading “Dave Williams: America Last, China First.”
The ads, paid for by the recently launched Restoring Standards PAC, linked to a recent KCNC-TV story detailing Williams’ employment history as registered agent and vice president of MKW Global Sourcing, a company owned by his in-laws. The company logged more than 1,000 imports from China between 2008 and 2020, according to a website that tracks shipping containers through the U.S. Customs Service.
Dave Williams claims to be America First, but as KCNC reports, he puts China First. #copolitics https://t.co/92lz2sMV6j pic.twitter.com/tOBUXST7mI
— RestoringStandardsPAC (@RestrStndPAC) March 23, 2024
Williams shrugged off his company’s import records as “fake news” without offering an explanation as to what the products were or where the products were made.
If the products were made in America, a good businessman would be bragging about that and defending his business.
Not to belabor the point, but records of products passing through U.S. Customs showing a Republican’s business importing tons of products from China is a serious accusation in conservative circles these days.
Williams has some explaining to do on his business matters, while his campaign needs to refund the party money it’s spent supporting his campaign.
Williams can’t drain the swamp while he’s stuck in the mud.