February 06, 2026 11:45 AM UTC

The Colorado Republican Party is Dead

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: The Colorado Sun has more on the GOP’s freefall and the next steps:

Holtorf’s last day as vice chair will be Feb. 28. The party must hold a special central committee meeting to elect his replacement. It’s likely to devolve into a public airing of grievances.

Gas up the clown car!

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Same circus, different clowns.

The refrain has been consistent for the Colorado Republican Party for more than a decade now. From Steve House and militia leader Kristi Burton Brown, to Dave Williams and now Brita Horn, changing the “whores and asswipes” in charge doesn’t ever put the GOP on a different path.

After two years of madness under former State Party Chair Dave Williams, Republicans elected former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn as their new leader in March 2025. To the extent that there was ever a honeymoon period, it didn’t last very long. New State Republican Party Vice Chair Darrel Phelan clashed with Horn and resigned after 72 days on the job. He was replaced by the chronically-ridiculous former State Representative (and former Congressional candidate, and former State Party Chair candidate) Richard Holtorf, who this week also resigned citing an inability to work with Horn. For her part, Horn responded by claiming that Holtorf was mean to people and didn’t submit a written outreach plan for…honestly, who cares?

One of Holtorf’s other complains with Horn is more concrete; Holtorf claims he has been pushing for the State GOP to stop its long legal nightmare of infighting that has the Party in the red for $150,000 worth of legal fees. Years of back-and-forth internal battles have made it difficult for the State Party to raise money, for obvious reasons. As The Colorado Sun reports today in its “Unaffiliated” newsletter, the GOP’s coffers are bone dry:

Less than a year from Election Day, the Colorado GOP is in dire financial straits.

The party reported raising $125,000 and spending about $133,000 last quarter through its federal campaign account, starting the year off with about $76,000 in the bank. But it also had $166,823 in outstanding debts, most of that in the form of unpaid legal fees stemming from its successful efforts to defend itself in a lawsuit against Chairwoman Brita Horn that’s been kept alive by a group of Republicans loyal to former party Chairman Dave Williams.

Things got so bad last quarter that the party had to tap into a $25,000 line of credit it has with Timberline Bank at a 7.25% annual percentage rate.

“We’ve never tapped the full amount,” said Alec Hanna, executive director of the party. “It’s helped us with cash flow issues to pay our bills on time.”

As of Monday, the party was using about $8,000 from that line of credit and had about $20,000 in the bank, Hanna said, explaining that the Colorado GOP has paid off debt from the line of credit as it is able.

The Colorado Republican Party was already having trouble keeping the lights on under Williams. The GOP might not even need to pay for an office anymore, since Executive Director Alec Hanna is THE ONLY PERSON ON THE PAYROLL for the entire state party. This is not good considering that Colorado voters will start casting ballots in the 2026 General Election in about eight months.

It’s true that political parties are less important overall than they once were, but they still play a key role in organizing volunteers and voter outreach. And as the Sun continues, the Colorado Democratic Party is doing just fine:

For context: The Colorado Democratic Party is not having the same financial problems. It reported raising $86,000 last quarter, while spending $111,000 and ending the year with nearly $180,000 in the bank and no debts. It has used that solid financial footing to hire staff in preparation for the election.

Colorado Republicans have long struggled with the “first rule of holes” — stop digging — and there’s no recent historical reason to think things will improve anytime soon. Donating to the State Party in 2026 is the very epitome of lighting money on fire. There’s also no realistic scenario in which a Republican might win a statewide race in Colorado for the first time since 2014, so the GOP won’t have someone who can trot around the state trying to convince people that things are different.

Things aren’t likely to get much better for the Colorado Republican Party anytime soon. The best they can hope for is that nothing gets substantially worse.