November 16, 2023 11:31 AM UTC

Colorado Republican Election Deniers Celebrate Their Takeover of State Party

•  
• by: James O'Rourke

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Ask many Colorado Republicans about their thoughts on U.S. elections, and you will hear a variety of answers. Some, like failed 2022 gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl, refuse to say in public what they told supporters in private. Others raise doubts about specific aspects of past elections, such as mail-in ballots or the frequent (and debunked) refrain of “dead people voted.” Still others give election conspiracies their full-throated endorsement, saying that Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020, and other Republicans’ losses in recent election cycles, are the result of voter fraud or other forms of cheating by Democrats.

Even with this, it is rare that a Republican would embrace the label of “election denier.” But following a major party fundraising dinner this month, former Boulder GOP Vice Chair Peg Cage did just that.

“I would like to see the election deniers a little more powerful,” Cage told party activists Chuck Bonniwell and Julie Hayden on their podcast. “I am an election denier.”

While she is no longer the Boulder GOP Vice Chair, Cage is a member of the Colorado Republican Committee, which votes to determine the direction of the party. She, along with Bonniwell, is also a member of MyColoradoGOP, a faction within the committee which defines itself by its opposition to Democrats and more moderate Republicans, referred to as Republicans in Name Only (RINOs).

Cage once characterized the faction as follows: “You can just think of us as the grassroots, law-abiding, platform-loving, America First, true Republican Patriots and we’re trying to keep the Republic. … … If you ever looked at the national platform, our principles are exactly the things that Donald Trump tried to stand up for.”

Other members of MyColoradoGOP have a tendency to push election fraud conspiracies, and have also pushed against allowing unaffiliated voters to participate in party primary elections – with the idea being that a voting base of Republicans alone will turn out a more conservative candidate for the general election. Last year, MyColoradoGOP activists participated in a protest against the current GOP leadership, blaming then-Colorado GOP Chair Kristi Burton Brown and others for putting insufficiently conservative candidates on the ballot.

READ MORE: Colo GOP Activists ‘Declare War’ on Their Own ‘Party of Whores,’ Call for Ousting Leadership

Since Burton Brown was replaced as chair by Dave Williams earlier this year, Cage seemed enthused about the prospects for conservative change in the near future. She told Bonniwell and Hayden that she is hopeful that conservative election integrity activists can implement their desired reforms before the presidential election next year.

“We have not had an honest election for a couple of decades. I’m ready for that to turn around,” Cage said. “And I think that the tide is moving that way. I think we can make that happen hopefully before 2024, where we don’t go into it with all of the problems that we’ve had in the last elections. But, you know, it wouldn’t have happened had we not gotten the leadership that we got in the party.”

She concluded with a call for fundraising: “So everybody, send money to the GOP.”

Bonniwell, who himself is a member of the state GOP executive committee, agreed: “Yes! That’s a really good point!”

Since Williams took the reins of the party, the Colorado GOP has struggled to raise money. As of September, the party’s expenses amounted to nearly double its income.

This is not the first time that Cage has directly voiced approval for conspiracy theories. While moderating a 2021 forum by the Colorado election fraud conspiracy group U.S. Election Integrity Plan (USEIP), Cage named key elements of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which contains a wide variety of outlandish beliefs, but primarily contends that top members of the U.S. government are part of a cabal of satanic pedophiles waging war against Donald Trump.

“We had President Trump and we had Q telling us, trust the plan, trust the plan,” Cage said during the forum. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are the plan and the baton has been passed to us. So everything that we do going forward, we do it together and we take back our country and we make this America again.”

During her interview, Cage was joined by the Colorado Republican Party’s Secretary, Anna Ferguson, who is also a QAnon believer, as well as a one-time member of USEIP. In a February 2021 post on the far-right social media site Gab, Ferguson wrote that she believes Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and “many others in government” are secretly pedophiles.

USEIP’s founders are currently being sued by multiple voting rights groups, alleging that the group committed voter intimidation by sending members, some of whom were armed, door-to-door in search of voter fraud.

Ferguson said that she would wholeheartedly support Lake if she were Trump’s 2024 vice presidential pick, putting them both within the 50% of Centennial Dinner attendees who would also pick Lake. Aside from her election denialism, Lake has a history of appealing to QAnon advocates. She has previously posed for photos and appeared at campaign events with conspiracy theorists who have pushed QAnon.

Asked if she thought Lake would make a good Vice Presidential pick, Ferguson said, “100%. After I met her this weekend, I think — I think that she would be.”

Last month, Lake announced her intention to run for U.S. Senate.

One takeaway Cage brought from the event: she feels that the Colorado Republican base has been energized.

“It was so good to see everybody in a winning spirit this time,” she said. “We’ve got, we’ve got a lot going on that wouldn’t have happened had we not gotten Dave [Williams] or a good candidate, you know, elected as the chairman.”

Cage did not respond to an emailed request for further comment. This story will be updated with any response received.