Montezuma County Republican Party Chair Lenetta Shull chastised Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams over the “transphobic email” the state party sent out last week during a Sunday evening “grassroots town hall meeting” held via Zoom. According to a recording of the event obtained by the Colorado Times Recorder, Shull raised concerns about the impact the email is having on the Senate District 6 race.
“My concern is the emails and stuff that you’re sending out for the candidates,” she said. “I feel like they need to have the approval of the candidate before you send them out. I’m kind of tired of putting out fires, and especially in our district. We have several of those crucial races in our area. After an email was sent out by the state, our Republican candidate [Sen. Cleave Simpson (R-Alamosa)] was doing very well, way ahead in fundraising everything, and now when that email went out from the state, her — er, the opponent’s — fundraising has jumped from the controversy of the state email. I’m very concerned about that, and I feel that we really need to respect the candidates and their platforms and their views.”
The email that went out last week attacked Vivian Smotherman, Simpson’s opponent, claiming “[Smotherman’s] entire identity is wrapped into transgenderism. … Coloradans need fair and sane representation.”
The email also attacked state Representatives Stephanie Vigil (D-Colorado Springs) and Brianna Titone (D-Arvada), claiming the progressive legislators “write laws that hurt nuclear families in their quest for more gender ideology.”
Simpson condemned the email in the press. “I already called Vivian to let her know I did not have advance knowledge of this and the attacks do not align with my value system,” Simpson told The Colorado Sun last week.
Williams declined to agree to any kind of approval process for state-party communications. “We’ll certainly respect, you know, the wishes of any candidate, but we’re also not going to go through an approval process with hundreds of different candidates,” he said. “If they don’t want us to send anything out, we certainly won’t send anything out, and if they think that we probably shouldn’t talk about someone’s radical transgender point of view, we can even do that, but we’re not going to go through an approval process.”
Simpson’s seat in the Colorado Senate is a must-win to prevent Democrats from obtaining a veto-proof supermajority.
“In the Senate, there are 35 senators — 23 Democrats and 12 Republicans,” lamented Simpson (R-Alamosa) during last year’s Ouray Lincoln Day Dinner. “We’re on a very slim margin. We’re one one seat away. If we as Republicans lose another seat in the Senate, it then gives both bodies, the House and the Senate, veto override power over the governor. If they pass this progressive liberal agenda and sometimes the governor doesn’t agree with some of those really progressive ideas, and if he would choose to veto one of those, the body could override his veto and it’ll become law.”
Shull said the email is a liability for the race. “You talk about critical or crucial races,” she told Williams. “Those candidates are in this community. They know exactly how the communities think and will react to that. It’s very difficult in our area, and it’s a huge balancing act. That email has hurt us. I can’t say it any plainer than that. It really has hurt us.”
Williams blamed any damage on Simpson. “It’s only hurt our efforts because of, with all due respect, the overreaction of the candidate himself,” he said. “I mean, this is why the press is really good at hurting us, because they know that there are certain candidates and campaigns that are just simply uncomfortable talking about tough issues.”
Darcy Schoening, the Colorado GOP’s director of special initiatives and the author of the email, also blamed Simpson in a social media post Saturday. “Since Senator Cleave Simpson went to the media, to defend the trans agenda, and called my email ‘bigoted,’ I will address his actions and my response to his email to me yesterday here,” she wrote. “Cleave iterated that he is upset I ‘misgendered’ the individual in the pictures below. My original email, against his opponent and in support of him, is posted in pictures below. I submit that I correctly gendered Vivian and will continue to do so. Enough is enough. It is important we stand up to the agenda. If we don’t, we will lose our children and our country. We must have the courage to defend the truth and the fortitude to fight even when it is hard.”
Williams reminded Shull that attacks against transgender people are part of the Colorado GOP’s official platform. “Moving forward, we won’t talk about the transgender issue as it relates to Cleave Simpson, because he clearly doesn’t want that to be talked about,” he said. “That’s fine. We’ll respect his wishes, but we make no apologies for talking about a crazy candidate who wants to chemically castrate children and wants to mutilate their genitals. We just don’t apologize for that. In fact, that’s a party plank that we voted on this past April that we’re going to fight against it. So that’s what we’re going to do.”
