June 10, 2025 11:17 AM UTC

Dave Williams Gets His Payback For Loyalty To Trump

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• by: Colorado Pols

After easily the most controversial and internally divisive two-year term as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party in recent history, former state Rep. Dave Williams announced in February that he would not seek a second term, which was widely speculated to indicate a patronage appointment to a federal job in the Trump administration was in the offing. It took a few months to be made formal, but Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette confirmed yesterday evening:

Despite having transformed the Colorado Republican Party under his leadership into an organization devoted to his personal political advancement as well as his chosen favorites who were endorsed by the party during the primary process–a gambit that failed in every case except Rep. Lauren Boebert who quickly disavowed Williams after her successful carpetbagging primary win in CO-04–and then looting the party for tens of thousands of dollars in direct payments to himself and a few friends while the 2024 campaign languished to the extent that funds were diverted to the Arizona GOP for use in support of Colorado congressional candidates, Dave Williams did one overriding thing right: worshipful, steadfast support for Donald Trump. It was Williams who engineered the party’s endorsement of Trump ahead of the presidential primary, which Williams then used as a pretext for the party’s endorsement in congressional primaries including Williams’ own.

In terms of qualifications for his new job as Senior Advisor to the International Trade Administration at the Commerce Department? Williams’ business interests outside politics reportedly involved importing cheap Chinese goods for resale in the U.S. at a considerable markup, earning him the nickname “Temu Dave” among some of his many detractors.

Williams’ favored successor did not win the vote to be the next party chair. New Colorado GOP chair Brita Horn, who remains under daily fire from Williams loyalists, is not expected to manage the party any more competently than Williams. The best Republicans can hope for is a slightly less treacherous and self-serving chair while another rough midterm election under Donald Trump rapidly approaches. Dave Williams leaves behind in Colorado a legacy of betrayal, deceit, and failure that local Republicans will spend upcoming years working to unwind–and that’s assuming they can ever find competent leadership to begin that process.

And as a reward, a plum patronage appointment to the Trump administration that will boost Williams’ career beyond the reach of his critics.

As the old saying goes, sometimes the bad guys get the prize. In today’s Republican Party, loyalty to Trump matters more than any other metric. Including victory.