COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—In the November 2022 election, Colorado Democrats gained a historic majority in the state House, a supermajority in the Senate, and retained the governorship.
Neither a red wave nor a red trickle was felt.
Still, the margins were razor-thin in several elections. For example, in the race for Colorado’s newly formed 8th Congressional District, Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican, lost to Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Democrat, by 1,632 votes. Richard Ward, the Libertarian candidate, received 9,280 votes.
“There were about a handful of elections that I can think of in 2022 that were decided by the slimmest of margins, and they included a Libertarian candidate, or at least some other third-party candidate on there, and swung it for the Democrats,” former state representative and current Colorado GOP state party Chairman Dave Williams, told The Epoch Times. The GOP elected Williams in March.
“I want to stress that I don’t think the spoiler effect is always the cause of why these close races go for Democrats, but there’s clear evidence that had we only had a Republican versus a Democrat, the Republican would have won these races.”
“The general agreement is that if the Republican Party can put forth a good, liberty-leaning candidate, then we will not run a competing candidate against the GOP,” Eliseo Gonzalez, the vice chair of the Libertarian Party of Colorado, told The Epoch Times.
Fighting for Colorado
Hannah Goodman, chairwoman of the Libertarian Party of Colorado, said party affiliations can help voters understand the “branding and ideology” behind a candidate. However, there can be liberty-minded candidates from any party. That understanding spurred the agreement with the GOP.“Tulsi Gabbard is [a liberty-minded candidate] on the left, Rand Paul is one on the right,” Goodman told The Epoch Times. “And so, we were thinking, how can we get more of those types of candidates elected so that overall, we as a society are more free? And we approached the GOP on that premise.”
Goodman said the GOP has run candidates almost indistinguishable from Democrat candidates in the past. Furthermore, she says there’s an alliance between corporate interests and state benefits, which is hurting Colorado voters.
“Across the board, Libertarians are not winning state House seats ... But our main goal in the party is to advance liberty,” she said.
She said the Libertarian Party reached out to the Democrats with the same deal, but Democrats “wouldn’t give us the time of day.”
While Libertarians aren’t Republicans and don’t agree with everything the GOP stands for, there are several things they do agree on, including that they’re anti-communism, anti-socialism, and want to return freedom and prosperity to Coloradans, Gonzalez said, adding that those principles are enough to bring the two parties into alignment against the Democrats.
“Having the Democrats in power has been the most detrimental thing even to the community that I work in, which is the largest Hispanic community,” said Gonzalez, who is Mexican American.
“Nobody likes higher taxes. Nobody likes inflation going through the roof, where they can’t even afford to pay for child care. Absolutely nobody wants that. But the Democrats are still pushing this idea that they’re kind of arbiters of morality.”
Gonzalez said that in Denver, it takes 15 minutes for the police to respond to a call for help and about 13 minutes in Aurora, which is heavily Hispanic.
“What [Democrats] have been doing is making it harder for people to own firearms to defend themselves, even with the 15-minute response time from the police. It’s terrible what it’s doing to our communities.”
He added that while Denver has spent more than $250 million to help homeless people, the result has been an increase in the homeless population.
“It’s a legislative nightmare. We are heading into a weird government-ruled, communistic style of leadership from the legislation, and it’s about time that changes.”
Goodman said her family has been heavily involved in politics—on the Democratic side—since arriving in Colorado in 1886.
“It’s definitely not the Democratic Party of my great grandfather, Rep. Guy Poe, who was a Democrat, and vice chairman of the Colorado Assembly,” she said.
Conserving Liberty Together
Colorado’s 2023 voter registration records show 1,054,708 active registered Democrats, 931,705 active registered Republicans, and 1,801,956 active registered unaffiliated voters.Goodman, Gonzalez, and Williams agree that, for the most part, Colorado voters are independent and want to vote accordingly.
“The greatest trick that [Gov.] Jared Polis ever pulled off was convincing voters that he was both a moderate and a libertarian,” Williams said. “And I think, part of the story for why Democrats are winning. Part of the reason why is they’ve been able to trick voters into thinking that they’re independent-minded, that they are oftentimes willing to buck their party line. And it’s not the truth.
“The truth is, we’re now competing with them. They can’t have a monopoly on what it means to be independent-minded, or liberty-focused, or pro-freedom, because now the Republican Party is competing on their playing field.”
Goodman said that she was willing to make a deal with the GOP because they elected Williams as the party chair, and he’s shown himself to be liberty-minded and anti-establishment.
“It’s so refreshing having Dave Williams step into that GOP chair. His focus is on the right thing. And this would never have worked if he hadn’t become chairman and I hadn’t become chairwoman at the same time.”
Williams said he’s happy to build coalitions.
Benefiting the Whole
Williams said the Colorado GOP is actively looking for more “Rand Pauls, Mike Lees, and Thomas Massie-types” as candidates.“We want to do that because those folks represent the type of limited government, pro-freedom politicians that Libertarians love. They certainly don’t expect perfection. But they certainly want candidates who will be about individual liberty, limited government, and advancing the cause of freedom. And if we can get our nominees going in that same direction, everyone will win.”
He doesn’t expect the requirements to be too burdensome, since it’s the direction the Republican Party in Colorado is moving.
Goodman said the Libertarian Party still plans to run candidates, but they'll be strategic about which races.
“It’s not that we won’t run any. It’s that—if you have a good candidate, we will do our best to steer clear,” she said.
If there’s a Libertarian on the ticket in 2024, it means the GOP candidate isn’t a liberty candidate, and voters need to look into the candidate’s political stance and history, Goodman stressed. For example, she said if Kirkmeyer runs again, she’ll face a Libertarian challenger.
By not focusing on the larger, competitive races, the Libertarian Party will have more resources to run in smaller, local elections, Goodman said.
“The more people we can get elected locally and on the county level, then eventually, we'll have more people elected at higher levels of government.
“It’s financially better for us as a party with very limited resources to focus on smaller races that cost us less but gain us a lot, while the GOP can then do their prong of the attack, work on the state level and higher. So, it’s like a multi-pronged attack against people who are against liberties.”
Gonzalez said he believes the new agreement will shift Colorado towards liberty.
“That’s the goal. I don’t care if liberty comes from an ‘R,’ an ‘L,’ ‘A,’ ‘D,’ a ‘Y,’ as long as it’s liberty. Liberty for people just to live their own lives. I think that the one thing that we all want is we definitely know that Colorado has gone in the wrong direction. I hope these efforts change the balance of power towards liberty versus tyranny.”
