Kirkmeyer, of Brighton, will face off against state Rep. Scott Bottoms and political newcomer Victor Marx in the June 30 Republican primary. Bottoms and Marx, both pastors who live in Colorado Springs, qualified for the ballot through the GOP state assembly on Saturday.

Bottoms, who led a wide assembly field and won support from 45% of attendees, will get the top spot in the race.

Kirkmeyer took the petition route to the ballot. She submitted more than 15,000 valid signatures, including more than 1,500 from each of Colorado’s eight congressional districts, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, which certified the signatures.

“This campaign has been built by thousands of real people, in real communities, all across Colorado,” Kirkmeyer said in a statement about her ballot qualification. “I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to sign our petition, share our message, and be part of something bigger. This is your campaign.”

The Democratic slate was mostly set at the end of March with that party’s state assembly. Attorney General Phil Weiser, who won support from more than 90% of that event����ap voting members, will face U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who petitioned onto the primary ballot.

Also on Wednesday, the Secretary of State’s office certified University of Colorado Regent Wanda James’s spot in a primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat. Melat Kiros, a Denver lawyer who stunned DeGette by outpolling her during the county assembly in March, has also qualified for that primary race. Republicans have nominated Christy Peterson, who is unopposed.

Earlier in the week, the Secretary of State’s Office certified Hetal Doshi and Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty for the Democratic primary ballot for attorney general. They will face Secretary of State Jena Griswold and attorney David Seligman in that party’s nominating contest.

Democratic and Republican primary ballots

Here are the candidates who qualified for the major-party ballots in the June 30 primary in statewide races. Voters affiliated with a party will receive its ballot in the mail in June. Unaffiliated voters can participate in primaries and will receive both parties’ ballots in the mail, but they can return only one of them.

The four state offices are all open races this year, with the incumbents term-limited.

Governor

• Democratic primary: U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, Attorney General Phil Weiser
• Republican primary: state Rep. Scott Bottoms, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, Victor Marx

Attorney general

• Republican primary: El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen, David Willson
• Democratic primary: Hetal Doshi, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, David Seligman

Secretary of state

• Democratic primary: state Sen. Jessie Danielson, Jefferson County Clerk Amanda Gonzalez
• Republican primary: James Wiley (a former Colorado Libertarian Party official), unopposed

Treasurer

• Republican primary: Fremont County Commissioner Kevin Grantham, unopposed
• Democratic primary: state Sen. Jeff Bridges, unopposed

U.S. Senate

• Democratic primary: state Sen. Julie Gonzales, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper (incumbent)
• Republican primary: state Sen. Mark Baisley, unopposed

The ruling, in a case filed by the Colorado GOP, did not fully strike down , which opened up primaries to participation by party faithful and unaffiliated voters alike. But in the decision issued on Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Philip A. Brimmer wrote that the law puts a “severe burden” on parties that want to opt out of the open primaries.

He ruled that part of the law violates the First Amendment’s protections of the freedom of association.

The law says that if a political party wants to close its primary so that only its own registered voters can participate, 75% of that party’s central committee must vote in support of the change. That threshold is unconstitutionally high, Brimmer wrote.

“The background and origin of the three-fourths opt-out provision is unclear,” Brimmer, who is based in Denver, wrote. “What is clear is that it constitutes an unusual and difficult barrier for the central committee to overcome, more akin to a hurdle to amend a foundational governing document, such as the United States Constitution, than a traditional means of regulating political parties.”

He noted that unaffiliated voters’ share of the Colorado electorate has grown, and they now make up a majority of registered voters in the state.

Brimmer’s ruling does not set a new threshold for parties to hit, should they want to close their primaries, and his order does not give specific direction for how the state or parties should proceed.

The decision also doesn’t appear to impact the upcoming summer primaries. The state GOP meets April 11 for its state assembly, where it will nominate some candidates for those contests, which are set for June 30.

The state GOP filed the lawsuit against the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office in 2023 under the leadership of conservative hardliner Dave Williams. He had blasted Prop 108 as a “radical leftwing” effort and argued that closing the primaries was vital to protecting true Republican candidates.

Representatives for the state Republican and Democratic parties did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday.

Kent Thiry, the millionaire donor who supported Prop 108, criticized what he called a “terrible, tunnel-vision decision” in a statement Wednesday. He said he hoped Brimmer’s ruling would be appealed.

“This decision tramples on the voting rights of a majority of Colorado voters, namely the independent voters,” Thiry wrote. “Voters own elections, not the parties.”

In a statement, the secretary of state’s spokesman John Magnino said unaffiliated voters should be able to vote in primary contests.

“Based on our reading, the court has not disturbed the plans in place for the upcoming June 2026 primary election,” Magnino said. “We are disappointed with this decision and are evaluating next steps in consultation with the attorney general’s office.”

Brimmer previously rejected the GOP’s request to close primaries to unaffiliated voters in 2024, and the lawsuit dragged on for another two years — outlasting Williams and nearly outliving his successor, current GOP chairwoman Brita Horn. Horn is stepping down as party chair later this month.

The new ruling would apply to both the Republican and Democratic parties in future years, should Democrats later choose to close their primaries, too. No party has yet opted out of the primaries under Prop 108’s provision, but Republicans have tried at least three times, according to Brimmer’s ruling.

In September 2023, more than 64% of the party’s central committee who voted on the motion supported closing the primaries, falling well short of the threshold.

The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the state Republican Party, should it choose to close its candidate-selection process only to its own registered voters. The GOP has lost significant ground in the state over the past decade, as Democrats have won control of most statewide offices and secured near-supermajorities in the state House and the Senate.

Still, right-wing conservatives like Williams have argued that the party needs to tack further to the right, even as the state turns deeper shades of blue. Closing state primaries, those figures argue, would ensure that more strictly conservative candidates make it on the ballot, which in turn would activate more Republican voters.

More moderate Republicans, meanwhile, have said the primaries should remain open to unaffiliated voters. In the decade since Prop 108 was passed, an ever-increasing share of voters has registered as unaffiliated, and moderates contend that the party should be as open to the state’s changing voter base as possible.

Brimmer wrote that roughly 100,000 unaffiliated voters participated in Republican primaries in 2018. By 2022, that total had more than doubled to 231,000, accounting for 37.1% of ballots cast in those contests that year. In some counties, the unaffiliated voters rivaled the number of Republican voters participating in the GOP’s primaries in 2022 and 2024.

Gas prices are once again on the rise a month after the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, resulting in a severe crimp in the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. And fingers are once again pointing at the party occupying the White House, now led by President Donald Trump.

But this time, the blame game has taken on a distinctly more digital and targeted approach as November’s midterm elections come into view.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last week an ad campaign targeting Republican incumbents it believes are vulnerable in 44 congressional districts, including U.S. Reps. Jeff Crank in the Colorado Springs-based 5th District and Gabe Evans in the 8th District north of Denver.

The ultrashort six-second video ad with the words “D.C. Republicans Did That!” It’s being “geo-targeted” to people’s Facebook and Instagram feeds when they come within close range of select gas stations in either district.

“Now, when voters fill up at the pump, they’ll have yet another reminder that D.C. Republicans are squarely to blame for the price of gas, and everything else, being too damn high,” DCCC spokeswoman Courtney Rice said.

It’s no surprise that Democrats are taking advantage of elevated prices at the pump to gain political advantage, said Jon Krosnick, a political science professor at Stanford University. He co-authored a 2016 study titled which found that a 10-cent increase led to a 0.6-percentage-point drop in support.

The price for regular unleaded fuel in Colorado sat at an average a day before the war started in late February, according to AAA. On Friday, it averaged  — an increase of just over $1 from a month ago.

While November’s election is not a presidential one, Krosnick said there will very likely be crossover in terms of dissatisfaction toward the party in charge of Congress.

“Every Republican running for office should be worried about gas prices going up,” he said.

Gas prices play an outsized role in how people gauge the severity of inflation at any given moment, Krosnick said. On nearly every corner of major thoroughfares throughout the country, giant lighted signs display the price of petrol.

“There’s no other consumer good that is as advertised to consumers like gasoline,” Krosnick said. “Not everybody in the family may be filling up the car, but everyone is driving past gas stations every day.”

Though gas prices were appreciably higher under the Biden administration following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine — reaching a peak of $4.87 per gallon of regular-grade gasoline in Colorado in June of that year, according to — Krosnick said voters care about what’s going on now.

“It’s a present-focused decision,” he said.

A ‘mitigating factor’ in the 8th District?

That was the case for Michael Kondur, a handyman who was filling up his truck last week at a Valero station at West 88th Avenue and Pecos Street in Thornton, in Evans’ congressional district. The price there was a comparatively forgiving $3.69 per gallon for regular.

“It’s the first time I’ve had a full tank in three weeks — and it will be gone in three days,” he said, also using choice words to describe Trump and Republicans in general. “I run my own business with this truck and I don’t have food on my table. Any Republican has got to go.”

Across the street at a Maverik station, where the price for a gallon of gas was nearly 10 cents higher, Carolyn McDowell said she was able to part with only $30 to fill her Chevy Silverado’s tank halfway. Her husband, who works for the delivery service DoorDash, is taking a real hit.

“It’s impacting his ability to make money,” she said.

McDowell said she’s against war in Iran, a stance that is in line with 61% of Americans who also disapprove of the conflict, according to a conducted between March 16 and March 22. The poll also found that 45% of respondents felt the military action was not going well, while 25% felt it was going extremely or very well.

Former Colorado GOP Chair Dick Wadhams, who has run his share of political campaigns, said there is no doubt that gas prices pose a problem for Evans, who’s seeking reelection in Colorado’s most politically competitive district, and Crank, who won comfortably in 2024 but is being targeted by Democrats more aggressively this year.

“The price of gas as it relates to inflation and the cost of living was a big part of Trump beating Harris in 2024,” he said of Trump’s defeat of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. “Democrats will try to make (gas prices) an issue right through November — there’s no doubt about it. The Republicans are in a vulnerable position.”

But there is a “mitigating factor,” Wadhams said, that Evans should be able to use to fight back in the 8th District — which covers a large chunk of Weld County, home to Colorado’s most productive oil and gas field.

“Gabe has a good argument against Democrats that they want to kill the oil and gas industry,” he said.

Two years ago, Democrats in the state legislature floated a bill that aimed to halt the issuance of new oil and gas permits by the end of 2029, a proposal that raised hackles in the industry. Lawmakers eventually .

In December, Republican state lawmakers attacked the Public Utilities Commission’s approval of a “clean heat” plan requiring Colorado’s larger utilities that supply natural gas to homes and businesses to substantially lower emissions over the next decade. The plan, they asserted, amounts to a mandate that forces families to buy “costly heat pumps, retrofits and electric appliances” to switch from gas to electricity.

This month, the influential environmental group Conservation Colorado filed ballot measures with the state elections office that would slap stricter penalties on the energy industry for the pollution and contamination that result from its operations.

In a , the group said it filed the measures to filed by the conservative political action committee Advance Colorado that would enshrine in the state constitution the right of producers to sell natural gas in the state and the right of consumers to use the energy source in their homes and businesses.

A spokeswoman for Evans’ campaign who declined to give her name called the Democrats’ stance on gas prices “hypocritical” in a statement.

“For years, they have pushed radical climate policies and overregulation, banning natural gas for residential heating, eliminating jobs for hardworking families, and handcuffing the very oil and gas workers who ensure reliable and affordable resources for Coloradans,” her statement read. “Now they expect us to believe they care about gas prices?”

Potentially bleak forecast

Republicans don’t just have gas prices to worry about — diesel prices are even worse.

Where a gallon of diesel fuel came in at $3.52 a month ago, , on Friday it hit $4.94.

Twenty percent to 25% of the operating cost for a long-haul trucker is fuel, said Greg Fulton, the president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, which represents more than 500 trucking companies in the state.

“This has come at a very difficult time for the industry,” he said of the spike in energy prices. “This is a situation where profit margins are very thin already.”

During the last peak in oil prices in 2022, Fulton said, some of that sticker shock was offset by the fact that more freight was on the road because consumers were buying more goods to accommodate new stay-at-home lifestyles set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic.

“They were able to pass along the increases easier,” Fulton said of his industry.

Trump’s widespread tariffs have made things even more constrained for trucking companies when it comes to trying to keep operating expenses down these days, he said.

“Hopefully this is more of a short-term situation,” he said.

While Iran last week , oil transport through the vital waterway was still badly hobbled by the war. Al Salazar, the director of research at oil and gas analysis firm Enverus, said the longer the strait was choked, the longer gas prices would stay high.

If the Strait of Hormuz were to remain largely closed through the end of May, Enverus projected that Brent crude prices would stay around $95 a barrel through this year and edge up to $100 a barrel in 2027. That’s because it would take time to replenish all the tanks and oil-holding facilities that are being tapped now, Salazar said.

“By the time the flow is fixed, your stocks (of oil) have all drawn down and you’re left at alarmingly low levels,” he said.

Weinberg, a Loveland Republican, faced accusations from fellow Republican Rep. Brandi Bradley that he misused a master key that could access any of the offices of his fellow legislators and that he used the key to enter at least one member’s space. She also alleged that Weinberg made sexually suggestive and inappropriate comments to her and others on multiple occasions.

Weinberg had initially requested an evidentiary hearing where the bipartisan could seek firmer proof that he committed wrongdoing. But Weinberg withdrew that request in favor of letting the committee make a recommendation based on probable cause findings.

The committee unanimously voted to recommend that Weinberg face a formal admonishment, including noting that the allegations fit “a pattern” of unbecoming behavior. The recommendation will now go to House leadership, along with a formal report of the committee’s findings.

The recommendation includes calling for Weinberg to complete sexual harassment training.

The committee drew a distinction between the probable cause findings and what would be clearer findings from a formal evidentiary proceeding. The required sexual harassment training was a particular sticking point. Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat on the committee, said it wasn’t proof that Weinberg broke ethics rules, but reflected the lower standard of probable cause.

“I don’t think that (required training) is necessarily saying we think you did this, or that this is the level of punishment to expect if sexual harassment did in fact occur,” Mabrey said.

An attempt to reach Weinberg for comment Tuesday morning was not successful. He announced in January that he would not seek reelection in the November election. Weinberg faces separate allegations that he misused campaign funds. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office is investigating those claims.

Joe Oltmann, who filed his candidacy paperwork Monday night, now seeks to participate in an electoral system that he has repeatedly tried to undermine.

He is the 22nd Republican actively seeking to earn the party’s nomination in June. It’s the largest gubernatorial primary field for a major party in Colorado this century, surpassing the GOP’s previous records set first in 2018, and then again in 2022 — and it comes as the party hopes to break Democrats’ electoral dominance in the state.

That field will almost certainly narrow in the coming months; four Republicans who’d filed have already dropped out. No more than four are likely to make it onto the ballot — either through the state assembly or by gathering signatures — for the summer primary, said Dick Wadhams, the Colorado GOP’s former chairman.

The size of the primary field doesn’t really matter, he said, because few candidates will actually end up in front of voters. Eighteen candidates filed ahead of the 2022 race, for instance, but .

On the Democratic side, a smaller field of seven active candidates is headlined by Attorney General Phil Weiser and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. Polis is term-limited from running again.

For 2026, Wadhams counted only a half-dozen or so Republican candidates whom he considered “credible,” a qualifier that Wadhams said he used “very, very loosely”: Oltmann, state Sens. Barbara Kirkmeyer and Mark Baisley, state Rep. Scott Bottoms, ministry leader Victor Marx, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell and former Congressman Greg Lopez.

Wadhams said that other than Kirkmeyer, all of those candidates had either supported election conspiracies or a pardon for Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk now serving a nine-year sentence for convictions related to providing unauthorized access to voting equipment.

Oltmann, of Castle Rock, has repeatedly — and falsely — claimed that the 2020 presidential election was not won by Democrat Joe Biden, while calling for the hanging of political opponents. He previously said he wanted to dismember some opponents to send a message, , before adding that he was joking.

In his Dec. 26 announcement video, Oltmann baselessly claimed that Democrats, who have won control of the state amid demographic shifts and anti-Trump sentiment, were in power in Colorado only because of election fraud.

He said Polis and Secretary of State Jena Griswold, along with 9News anchor Kyle Clark, were part of a “synagogue of Satan.” Polis and Griswold are both Jewish.

In his announcement, Oltmann painted an apocalyptic picture of the state and said he hoped that three of its elected leaders — Polis, Griswold and Weiser — would all be imprisoned. He pledged to eliminate property taxes, to focus on the “have-nots” and to pardon Peters, whom President Donald Trump has also sought to release by issuing a federal pardon that legal experts say can’t clear Peters of state convictions.

Oltmann’s decision to join the field is an example of “extreme candidates” from either major party “who file to run but will go nowhere,” predicted Kristi Burton Brown, another former state GOP chair. She now sits on .

She said the size of the Republican primary field was a consequence of Republicans’ difficulties winning statewide races in Colorado. Democrats have won all four constitutional elected offices for two straight election cycles.

Burton Brown said it “might be a good idea moving forward” to require candidates to do more than just submit paperwork to run for office. That might include a monetary requirement: She said she didn’t support charging candidates significant sums but thought that “requiring some skin in the game” could prevent “unreasonable primaries.”

The 2026 election comes as state and national Democrats search for a path forward after Trump’s reelection last year.

Approval polling for leading Colorado Democrats has sagged this year, and voters here hold unfavorable views of both the Democratic and Republican parties that are roughly equal, .

Wadhams said that the odds were “very difficult” for any Republican gubernatorial candidate next year. While approval for Polis and other Democrats has declined, support for the Republican standard-bearer — Trump — is far lower in the state. In last year’s election, Colorado was a largely blue island in a broader national red wave.

To have a real shot of winning in 2026, Wadhams argued, the GOP needed to nominate someone for governor who could sidestep anti-Trump sentiment and press on the issues driving voter discontent. Running more divisive candidates in a blue state, he warned, would risk harming Republicans’ chances in down-ballot races the statehouse or in races for Congress.

“There seems to be an opening for Republicans we haven’t seen for a while,” he said. “But that opening will only exist if we have candidates who won’t get pulled into this conspiracy stuff and this Tina Peters stuff. Because those are nonstarters. They’re sure losers.”

By the convention’s end, seven of those defendants had been elected to the party’s board, including as its chair and vice chair, with promises to “clean up” the party’s image, stop “repelling people” and — perhaps most consequentially for the state and country — to go back to running Libertarian candidates across the state.

“We won,” longtime party member Caryn Ann Harlos summarized in an email shortly after the convention ended last weekend.

The overhaul was the result of more than 12 months of growing conflict within Colorado’s largest minor political party, which has about 37,000 registered voters and has long focused on personal and economic liberties over government regulation.

The civil war included lawsuits, competing factions claiming control and prior leadership attempting to place independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ballot and snub their own candidate. The party also moved closer to the , including trying to clear the field to ease U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans’ path in one of the closest congressional races in the country.

The acrimony grew so pronounced that a judge had to oversee a binding agreement between the party’s warring factions just to ensure that the Oct. 18 convention followed its own rules and didn’t devolve into a “(expletive)-show,” as Denver District Judge Sarah B. Wallace put it.

“The last couple of years, the party took a different direction, and Saturday, the delegates voted me in as chair,” Keith Laube, who comfortably beat one of the party’s prior leaders to become chair, said in an interview last week.

He said party membership, , has dropped, “And I’m proposing a new direction for the party, which consists of more getting back to our Libertarian principles and growing the party.”

The new direction is, in a sense, the old direction. Laube, who previously ran the , and his allies promised to run Libertarian candidates, reverse the decline in their voting base and repudiate the caustic public image embraced by the party’s now-former leaders. He said the party should support LGBTQ Americans, an apparent nod to the prior chair’s use of anti-gay slurs against a sarcastic Facebook critic. At the convention, supporters of the Laube faction “make LPCO Libertarian again.”

In America’s political duopoly, smaller parties often represent distinct voices and ideologies that neverthless have little chance in most contests above the local level. In a bid to exercise direct political power, the Colorado Libertarian Party’s prior leadership had sought to ally with outsiders — like RFK Jr. — at the cost of closer adherence to their own party’s candidates and principles.

The cost of that shift — and the party’s aggressive public posture — was too high for some, who challenged the RFK Jr. deal in court. This year, Laube and allied Libertarians held their own meeting in August, elected a new board and told state election officials that they were now in charge, according to communications from the .

The actual leadership then sued in an attempt to ensure the dissidents didn’t try to exercise leadership authority, arguing they could create confusion at the convention. That prompted Wallace’s apt description and her direction that the two sides come up with an agreement to ensure the convention went smoothly — or else.

The convention did go smoothly, and Laube’s faction nearly swept the contests.

Their victory may have echoes outside of the party: It likely means an end to negotiations with the GOP, for instance, which could influence a major congressional race and control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Under the party’s previous leadership, Libertarian candidates agreed not to run in close races, so long as the GOP candidate signed a “liberty pledge” backing Libertarian principles. The agreement was seemingly borne out of the 8th Congressional District, a seat with razor-thin margins that’s become a chronic national battleground.

In 2022, a Democrat beat her Republican opponent by 1,600 votes, while the Libertarian in the race earned nearly 9,300 votes. In 2024, Republican challenger Evans signed the liberty pledge, and his Libertarian opponent dropped out. Evans then beat Democratic incumbent Yadira Caraveo by roughly 2,500 votes. Evans’ victory represented a rare marquee Republican win in Colorado, and it helped his party secure a narrow majority in the U.S. House.

It’s impossible to say definitively if the Libertarian-GOP deal spurred Evans’ win. Laube argued that candidate-less Libertarians wouldn’t immediately flock to a Republican, and some may support a Democrat instead. But Evans took the possibility seriously enough to sign the pledge and hold a press conference with his one-time Libertarian opponent to announce their armistice.

Looking to 2026, Laube said he didn’t support extending the agreement with the GOP and that Libertarian candidates should run wherever they can. At the convention, the party’s newly elected campaign director, Joe Johnson, touted his previous efforts to run Libertarians up and down the ballot.

“To me, it defeats the purpose of the party if we’re going to tell our candidates to back down to another party,” Laube said. “That doesn’t make much sense. Then we’re not a political party.”

Brita Horn, who was elected to lead the state GOP in the spring after a period of internal upheaval that bore striking similarities to the Libertarians’ struggle, said in a statement that she hasn’t had a chance to meet with Laube and discuss the two parties’ prior agreements.

It’s unclear whether the shift will have an impact: Laube’s election is still just days old, and no Libertarian has filed to compete in CD-8. But if one does, the change could affect one of the closest races in the United States and, as a consequence, could influence who controls Congress in 2027, said Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at .

Republicans have a bare majority in the 435-seat House, Saunders said, and the 8th Congressional District is one of the most competitive contests in the country.

“If Libertarian candidates start running in competitive districts, of which there’s one in Colorado, and if it����ap a scenario like what happened in 2022 — yes, the third party could very well be the spoiler,” he said.

For the party’s now-former leadership, partnering with the GOP meant a degree of tangible — and elusive — relevance. James Wiley, a member of the party’s prior leadership who unsuccessfully challenged Laube for chair, said the division came down to a “difference of philosophy.”

On the other end of Laube’s faction is Wiley and the now-former party chair, Hannah Goodman, who wanted the party to have and wield some measure of tangible power, even if it meant dropping their own party’s presidential candidate and providing explicit support for Republicans. (Goodman now says she intends to join the Democratic Party.)

“What I’m hoping is that — and what I expect of the future of the Libertarian Party — we recognize that the party, ballot access, ballot line, our spoiler capacity — we use them either consciously or subconsciously, for the good or harm of liberty,” Wiley said. “We can become self-aware as a party.”

For the party’s new leadership, running Libertarian candidates and providing an outlet for their voters’ political perspective isn’t spoiling. It’s what they should do as a party with distinct members and distinct views, they argue.

“We are Libertarians,” Joshua Robertson told fellow party members at the convention. “We are not Democrats. We are definitely not Republicans.”

Monday, a federal jury found Lindell and his media platform, FrankSpeech, guilty of defaming Eric Coomer, the former security and product strategy director for Dominion Voting Systems.

Lindell accused Coomer of being a traitor, a criminal, and “part of the biggest crime this world has ever seen” by helping to steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden with sabotaged voting machines. These lies harmed Coomer’s reputation, career, safety, and health. Because the jury did not award Coomer the full $62.7 million he requested, Lindell is spinning the loss as a victory.

This isn’t the first time Lindell has paid for pedaling deception. Back in 2021 he challenged computer experts to prove that his 2020 election data were false. When the “Prove Mike Wrong” contest did just that, Lindell refused to pay the winner until an arbitration panel forced him to pony up.

Undeterred, Lindell has continued to push preposterous and thoroughly debunked claims about the election. He’s been using the defamation trial to hawk his wares on social media. In addition to pillows, buyers can get their very own replica of Lindell’s always prominently displayed cross necklace for the low, low price of $249.98 (half off with promo code JURY).

Like an ’80s televangelist, Lindell is a pro at exploiting religion to bilk the gullible. In addition to sales, he’s raised more than $362,000 so far through crowdfunding to support his case, which he’s appealing.

Since it����ap a civil not a criminal case, the Trump administration cannot issue a get-out-of-justice-free card like it did for the January 6 convicts or like it is trying to do for fellow election conspiracy theorist Tina Peters.

Lindell could, however, seek a job with the Trump administration. Lack of competence is no barrier. It might, like loyalty and lack of scruples, be a requirement. Dave Williams, the former Colorado GOP chairman who destroyed what remained of the state party’s credibility, recently got a job with the Commerce Department. Perhaps Lindell can join him or at the very least land a multi-million dollar federal contract for pillows.

It����ap small consolation to know Lindell is not the only limelight-seeker to pay damages. One America News, Sidney Powell, and Newsmax settled with Coomer. Perhaps as a prelude to a settlement, Salem Media just issued another apology for allowing Colorado podcaster Joe Oltmann to voice false statements about Coomer on air. Oltmann claimed he heard Coomer on an Antifa conference call say he was going to throw the election to Biden. Coomer is likely to prevail in his defamation case against Oltmann.

Nevertheless, Oltmann spent the past the week badmouthing the judge and the plaintiff. Perhaps his attorney should familiarize him with the concept of defamation and court proceedings generally. It����ap costing him. A federal appeals court just upheld a district court����ap $1,000-per-day sanction ruling against Oltmann for skipping out on his court deposition.

In the end though, no amount of money from these con men can make up for what Coomer has endured the past four years. Election lies ruined his life, shattered his reputation, and made him the target of death threats. That can never be paid back.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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The winner of the Colorado legislative session was public education which was fully funded as required under the long-standing constitutional Amendment 23. Lawmakers eliminated the Budget Stabilization Factor, a budgeting gimmick that reduces education funding in order to balance the state’s budget.

An expected decline in revenue this coming year, however, may prompt the legislature to resort to such schemes again. It isn’t easy to fulfill competing constitutional mandates imposed by the ballot initiatives.

In more ways than one, representative democracy was the loser of this year’s legislative session. Twice special interests successfully extorted legislative changes by threatening to run initiatives. In order to thwart proposed legislation, the oil and gas industry said it would launch ballot proposals Democrats found unacceptable. Environmentalists upped the ante with a few proposition ideas of their own. Gov. Jared Polis was called in to broker a peace deal.

Later, in response to a weak property tax cut, Advance Colorado and Colorado Concern drafted a couple of initiatives to compel lawmakers to produce a stronger tax cut. In both cases, better legislation resulted but at what cost? Advocates of the initiative process say it empowers citizens through direct democracy. It looks more and more like a way for special interests to pressure and even bypass citizens’ duly elected representatives.

Speaking of elections, the winners of the primary were more moderate candidates. Voters sent far-left state Reps. Elisabeth Epps and Tim Hernandez packing. Although the Colorado GOP endorsed a slate of unelectable far-right candidates for the state General Assembly and Congress, most lost to mainstream candidates. Sadly, when Republican Central Committee members tried to hold state GOP chairman Dave Williams accountable for this and other breaches of ethics, a judge ruled that an insufficient number of them had been present for a vote to oust him.

They weren’t the only losers, lefty funders who tried to boost conspiracy theorist Ron Hanks’ candidacy in the 3rd Congressional District failed to get him over the primary finish line. His opponent, Jeff Hurd, went on to beat Democrat Adam Frisch in the general.

The 4th Congressional District wasn’t so lucky. Thanks to several also-rans, a qualified candidate native to the district failed to gain a majority in that primary. The district will have to live with Congresswoman Lauren Boebert at least until she faces another competitive primary, moves again, or is nominated by President Donald Trump to head a federal agency. National Endowment for the Arts, maybe?

In the general election, the biggest losers were ranked-choice voting, which lost 54-46 despite the $19 million spent promoting it, and Secretary of State Jena Griswold, whose election machine password leak killed any hope she will ever be governor. That didn’t stop someone on her team from launching a “Jena for Governor” website domain. Maybe go with “Jena for Dog Catcher” next time.

Just as ridiculous, some on the far right tried to equate Griswold’s errors with intentional lawbreaking by former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters. She was sentenced to nine years in prison for an election data breach scheme that cost taxpayers $1.4 million. Will the incoming president pardon her? Probably, for Presidents Joe Biden and Trump, decisions made by judges and juries are just suggestions when it comes to family, friends, and co-conspirators. In the meantime, though, Peters will have to sleep in orange pajamas without a My Pillow.

A little justice is about all we can hope for in politics. Win some, lose some. Happy New Year.

Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.

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District Court Judge Kandace Gerdes heard four hours of testimony in a hearing called in a lawsuit filed by the Libertarian Party of Colorado. The leak had been reported separately last week by the state Republican Party and Jena Griswold, a Democrat.

A lawyer for the Libertarian Party argued that the leak, discovered by a prominent 2020 election denier, compromised the election’s integrity. The suit also seeks the destruction of affected election equipment.

Griswold, meanwhile, announced she would be hiring a “well-regarded” law firm to conduct an outside investigation into how the information was posted to her office’s website — in a hidden tab on a spreadsheet — for months before it was discovered.

In court Monday, attorneys representing Griswold argued that the passwords were not enough to jeopardize voting systems and that the Libertarians’ request would sow “chaos” across the state as clerks prepared for polls to close at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Griswold’s office has said that in order to use the passwords, a person would need physical access to the equipment, along with additional passwords that were not included in the released spreadsheet.

During the hearing, no evidence was presented indicating any voting systems were compromised or had been improperly accessed. First Deputy Attorney General LeeAnn Morrill said suggestions otherwise were based on “supposition” and “fear mongering.”

Last week, after the breach was revealed, Griswold immediately came under fire. Regardless of how Gerdes rules on the Libertarian suit, other election officials are bracing for additional litigation and fallout from the release of the passwords, which came just days before a presidential election that some elements of the .

Matt Crane, the executive director of the , told The Denver Post that some Colorado Republican officials were already planning to challenge the certification of ballots in the state.

“The software leak is a valid leak for people to be concerned about,” Crane, a Republican who formerly served as the Arapahoe County clerk, said. “But I think it����ap mitigated. … But bad actors will do what they do. We know that.”

Griswold calls leak “regrettable”

The release of the passwords was revealed Oct. 29, when the Colorado Republican Party announced that a spreadsheet posted on included a hidden tab specifying the codes. The party also released a redacted version of an affidavit from an unnamed person who found the passwords in the spreadsheet.

The affidavit was filed by Shawn Smith, a retired Air Force officer who to undermine the 2020 election results. The Post obtained a copy of the affidavit Monday, and it was later described by Smith during the court hearing.

Smith testified that he discovered the passwords while reviewing the spreadsheet on Oct. 24. In his affidavit, Smith indicated he’d accessed the spreadsheet twice in October and once in August, though the affidavit itself doesn’t make clear when Smith identified the presence of the passwords.

In February 2022, that Griswold had committed election crimes and that anyone involved in election fraud should be executed.

It’s unclear how the state Republican Party — led by another election denier, chairman Dave Williams — became aware of Smith’s claims. Smith testified that attorney John Case contacted him to ask him to prepare an affidavit about his findings, though he did not indicate how Case knew to contact him. Case, who was in the courtroom Monday, declined to answer when asked by a reporter how he learned of Smith’s findings.

In a statement Monday, Griswold’s office said officials learned of the password leak on Oct. 24 — the same day Smith said he learned of it — from a voting machines vendor.

After conducting an assessment of how widespread the breach was, officials determined that 34 of Colorado’s 64 counties were affected.

Griswold’s office didn’t alert the public — or county clerks — about the passwords’ release until after the Colorado GOP announced it. In an interview Monday, Griswold said she regretted both the release of the passwords and that county clerks learned of it via the media, rather than from her office.

All of the released passwords have since been changed, she said, and the state’s elections remain secure.

“We discovered an error that is regrettable and took as thoughtful and measured of steps to address it (as we could), in an atmosphere that is full of threats and disinformation,” Griswold said.

Griswold’s office confirmed that the staff member who created the spreadsheet — which was posted online June 21 — “amicably left” their job well before the passwords were discovered.

She said her office was also contracting with Garnett Powell Maximon Barlow & Farbes, a metro Denver law firm, to conduct an outside investigation into what happened. She said the timeline for that investigation was still being determined.

Reviewing security footage

Christopher Beall, Griswold’s deputy, testified in court Monday that the state was reviewing 24-hour surveillance footage, among other security monitoring, to determine if anyone had improper physical access to voting equipment in Colorado’s counties. Those procedures were put in place after former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters improperly accessed voting systems after the 2020 presidential election.

“We’re continuously working on building trust in our elections,” Griswold told The Post. “Colorado’s elections are secure. We have multilayer security at every step of the way. We have strong security measures, internally and externally, and we are always trying to move as quickly as possible in the environment.”

While machines are used to count votes, people still cast votes on paper ballots. And counties across the state conduct reviews called risk-limiting audits that compare the ballots to tallied results after each election.

Griswold has faced Republican ire for her criticism of former President Donald Trump and election conspiracies. One man pleaded guilty last month to making death threats against her and others. Earlier this year, state House Republicans sought to impeach her for calling Trump an insurrectionist and other criticisms made from her official position.

Soon after the breach was made public last week, Sen. Kevin Van Winkle, a Highlands Ranch Republican, that the Legislative Audit Committee hold an emergency meeting to assess if the state’s election systems were compromised. Doing so would provide a venue to address questions such as whether the breach was intentional when the passwords were posted, he wrote.

The committee voted on party lines against holding a meeting. Despite Democratic majorities in the legislature, that committee has a 4-4 bipartisan split. Its members could still raise the issue at the next normally scheduled meeting in December.

Rep. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican who chairs the committee, declined to comment on the decision until after the election. Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat and vice chair of the committee, said the tight timeframe of the request, along with assurances from multiple agencies that there’d been no security compromise and that passwords have been switched, made him question the need for expediency.

He also pointed to the independent investigation being commissioned by the Secretary of State’s Office as likely providing more information for the committee to explore — on its normal timeline.

“With all respect to Sen. Van Winkle, it’s really hard to understand this request as anything other than a partisan request to undermine voters’ confidence, and I think that’s the last thing we need to be doing in this moment,” Boesenecker said in an interview.

So says Eli Bremer, whom the party’s central committee selected to replace Williams as party chair in a vote on Saturday.

“My job is to get this thing back on track as fast as possible and make sure it’s rebuilt correctly to support Republican candidates,” said Bremer, a former chair of the El Paso County Republican Party and a 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate, on Monday.

But Williams, in a text message to The Denver Post, called the contention that he was no longer the head of the GOP in Colorado “beyond absurd.” He said a “fringe party faction” that met in Brighton over the weekend does not “get to decide for 400 plus members (of the central committee) at a fake meeting.”

In an email sent after Saturday’s vote, the party claimed that Republican National Committee parliamentarian Al Gage had already determined in an opinion that the meeting in Brighton was “illegitimate” and any action taken “was or will be null and void.”

More than 180 committee members attended or participated by proxy. All but a handful took part in the vote, with more than 90% of votes cast in support of Williams’ removal, according to former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams — no relation — who served as parliamentarian for the meeting.

As with the two popes who ruled the Roman Catholic Church in the late 14th and early 15th centuries after the institution underwent a major schism, the state Republican Party is without a definitive leader. Ultimately, it may be up to a judge or the RNC to determine who is the legitimate head of the Colorado GOP.

“Since this has already gone to a court three times, it’s going to go to a court a fourth time,” said Todd Watkins, the vice chair of the El Paso County Republicans who spearheaded Saturday’s meeting at a Brighton church. “It’s obviously going to be a legal battle — we always knew that.”

Still, Saturday’s decision quickly gained some influential recognition. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which supports GOP congressional candidates, announced it would support the result, and luminaries congratulated Bremer.

The latest twists and turns in the long-running skirmish between mainstream critics and Dave Williams, a far-right former state lawmaker who ascended to the top of the party last year, has revealed a Colorado Republican Party riven by dissent and bitter division just 10 weeks before the Nov. 5 election.

Cries for Williams’ ouster from within his own party have grown louder over the last few months. They’re centered on his unorthodox and controversial decision to pick and choose certain GOP candidates as favorites during the primary election season — including himself in his unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District.

In April, Williams was criticized for tossing a political reporter from the party assembly in Pueblo due to his belief that the reporter’s coverage of Republicans had been “very unfair.” Around the same time, a Republican strategist filed an ethics complaint against Williams, alleging he improperly used state party monies to help his congressional effort.

In June, Williams was lambasted by politicians on both sides of the aisle after he sent out an email under the party banner titled “God hates pride,” repeating anti-LGBTQ+ smears and calling for the burning of Pride flags.

Late last month, the planned attempt to oust Williams was put on hold by a district court judge before regaining momentum in early August when the judge decided his court lacked jurisdiction to block it.

That resulted in Saturday’s gathering of the party’s central committee in Brighton for a special meeting.

The party’s bylaws, which set the threshold to remove the chair at 60% of the committee, leave some room for interpretation. But the Brighton attendees voted to interpret the threshold as the proportion of those in attendance at the meeting.

Watkins said the true desires of the party were already borne out during the June primary, when nearly every one of Williams’ endorsed congressional candidates lost their race.

“That’s the party we’re supposed to be representing,” Watkins said of the winners.

Most of the Republican nominees in the state’s eight congressional races signed a letter Saturday recognizing Bremer as chair of the state party, along with former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn as vice chair and former Mesa County GOP Chair Kevin McCarney as secretary. Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen also signed the letter.

Wayne Williams said the party will move forward under its new leadership, even as the “legal wrangling” over the central committee vote continues.

“We need to get away from the damaging sideshow that has been hurting our party’s effectiveness, which has essentially been absent without leave in this fall’s campaign,” he said.

Bremer, a 14-year Air Force veteran and a pentathlete in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, opened an office in Colorado Springs on Monday to run the party out of until he can gain access to the party’s headquarters in Greenwood Village.

“My job description is to stop the damage to the party,” said the 46-year-old Colorado Springs businessman. “We’re going to take every legal step to protect the assets of the party as quickly as possible. I am here to fix the problem we have right now.”