Depending on the Republican, the cause of or the solution to the party’s woes run through former President Donald Trump.
Thirty-six hours after Republicans suffered historic election losses in Colorado, and as elected members were regrouping, state Rep. Richard Holtorf, of Akron, framed the party’s position in heroic terms.
“Just about every Republican strategist, consultant, elected official and leader is asking right now: What’s the path forward?” Sage Naumann, a Republican consultant who’s recently worked in the state Senate and for U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea. He attributed that to the “lingering effect” of Trump over the party and a focus on divisive issues, like banning abortion, that Colorado voters consistently reject.
Meanwhile, Naumann said, bombastic Colorado Republicans, “who are in elected office because it’s fun to throw bombs and to quote-unquote own the libs” suck all the oxygen out of the room that could otherwise be used to help Colorado. And much of that is simply out of local and state Republican’s control, he said.
Still, she told her fellow representatives, those messages came from “communication streams and networks that I have access to in order to rally the troops, to speak into bills that you are advancing, to speak into bills that we are opposing as a caucus.” Her apology-turned-enticement didn’t work, and Rep. Mike Lynch was elected minority leader instead.
He told the Post in an interview that he and other Republicans didn’t understand why the messaging on crime and economics hadn’t worked. Coloradans must not have reached a “pain point” yet, he said, adding that Democrats had been effective in their messaging on abortion. He thought voters “misinterpreted” the status of abortion access in Colorado and that Republicans “assumed voters knew stuff they didn’t.
Several other party officials used the term “rebuild” to describe what Colorado Republicans must do next. Williams, the departing state representative, likened the party to a flailing sports team that would need years of work before it could hope for a title shot. His fellow House Republican, Delta Rep. Matt Soper, said the party needed to embrace more libertarianism and capitalize on what he perceived as voters’ fiscal conservatism.
“There needs to be a rebranding,” she said. “It’s not just a Colorado rebranding, but it’s a national conversation. But a rebranding can only be successful if there’s a receptivity to how Republicans are perceived.”
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