After two and a half hours of points of order, “you’re muted!” shouts, and calls to cancel last night’s virtual meeting altogether, the Colorado GOP finally chose a new vice chair. Richard Holtorf, who represented much of the Eastern Plains until Jan. 8 of this year, defeated Douglas County businessman and online MAGA activist Mark Hampton by a slim six-vote margin, 204 -193.
Hampton, who runs the Parker Conservatives Facebook group, disputes that result, calling it a “Banana Republic cosplay session, minus the military uniforms but with all the corruption,” before casting doubt on the vote tally.
“Oh, the vote. There were between 405 and 409 people on the call. And yet, somehow, about 40 votes just vanished. Gone. Poof. Dissolved into the digital ether like the credibility of the current GOP leadership. Stalin would have taken notes,” said Hampton.
For his part, Holtorf signed off the meeting by thanking Hampton and describing the campaign as a “very interesting couple of months, before following up on his promise to unify the party: “I want to extend my hand to serve all — in every capacity that I can — as Vice Chair. Whether you voted for me or not is not relevant. So I want to thank everybody for allowing me to have the privilege of serving as your vice chair, and with that, I appreciate the support that I received tonight.”
Chairwoman Brita Horn ran the virtual meeting with the help of parliamentarian Gregory Carlson, who announced the tallies of virtual votes cast via Zoom’s polling function. For each vote, a polling window opened during which credentialed members could, but were not required to, vote, which could account for the missing votes Hampton mentions.
However, Hampton isn’t the only Republican Central Committee member questioning the result. Jefferson County bonus member Weston Imer, who repeatedly called for adjournment and to reschedule the meeting in person at a later date, says he is “skeptical” of the vote count.
“The process was flawed,” says Imer. “Credentialing was a mess, and there were members who were unverified, as well as issues with the voting, where people were repeatedly not allowed to cast a ballot.”
During the meeting Imer, frustrated about not being recognized to speak, resorted to writing his own “Point of Order” request on a Post-It note and holding it up to his camera.
Colorado Hispanic Republicans board chair Raymond Garcia, who also serves as an El Paso County bonus member, took to Facebook after the meeting ended, writing, “That was a totally rigged SCC meeting!” He subsequently accused Horn of being a puppet controlled by unnamed handlers, using a meme depicting Chris Farley as a marionette.
Holtorf’s colleague state Rep. Brandi Bradley was among those complaining about the process. Commenting on Garcia’s post, Bradley wrote, “three times I didn’t receive the poll… What happened to the party of accountability and transparency? There should’ve been a vote for everything.”
Despite Hampton’s claims of corruption, today he writes that he will continue to organize the grassroots MAGA movement, but via his own entities, rather than the Colorado Republican Party itself.
“Now look, this isn’t sour grapes. It’s common sense. I fell just 11 votes short, how convenient, especially in a race where 40 votes went missing. But here’s the twist…Their own arrogance blinded them from seeing the right political move. And because of that, they made their worst mistake, because now I get to build the army that’s coming for their jobs in 2027…
Meanwhile, I’ve been on the phone with hundreds of outstanding conservatives from Grand Junction to Pueblo, who are starving for real leadership. The kind that doesn’t bend the knee to anyone. The kind of in-your-face leadership that calls out nonsense and isn’t afraid of a fight. And that’s exactly what we’re building.”
Parker Conservatives and We the People Network are expanding across the state. We’re not asking for permission; we’re taking territory. We’re reaching out to county chairs. We’re engaging disillusioned Republicans. … Come 2027, when that chairmanship is up for grabs, we won’t just be ready, we’ll be everywhere.”
The virtual meeting, which was also live-streamed on the party’s Youtube channel, was marred from the start with various technical difficulties. Most were related to the party’s decision to conduct an official meeting of over 400 people via Zoom while operating under Robert’s Rules of Order. With participation restricted to GOP Central Committee members, bylaws state that members sign in with identification, which in this case means displaying photo IDs online to be confirmed by party leaders, a requirement with which some members were reluctant to comply, citing concerns over identity theft.
Ultimately, the meeting began almost two hours late. Horn struggled to get through even the pro forma votes of accepting the credentialing report and the meeting rules, as members kept listing problems they had getting credentialed or getting called on to speak, with many asking for the meeting to be canceled or postponed until it could be held in person. Horn repeatedly deferred to Carlson to settle parliamentary disputes raised by unhappy members.
Reached via Facebook Messenger, Carlson declined to comment, instead directing the Colorado Times Recorder to the Colorado GOP’s new Executive Director, Alec Hanna, who attended the meeting as one of two non-voting participants, along with the party’s lawyer. Hanna, a political consultant who previously worked as the state House GOP Communications Director, did not return an email request for comment. This article will be updated with any response received.
Today the party celebrated Holtorf’s victory on its Facebook page, posting “Yo, Colorado GOP just got a new Vice Chair, Richard Holtorf! This guy’s ready to wrangle the party like a pro cowboy, ropin’ in unity and kickin’ Dems to the curb. Congrats, Richard—time to saddle up and make Colorado redder than a sunset!”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misidentified Richard Holtorf as a state legislator. He served in the statehouse from Dec. 2019 to Jan. 2025.
