“Populism is not conservatism,” noted Colorado Christian University (CCU) President Eric Hogue as he introduced the 2026 Western Conservative Summit. Hosted by the Centennial Institute, CCU’s think tank, the annual conference of Colorado conservatives has been on a hiatus since 2024, following the resignation of former Centennial Institute Executive Director Jeff Hunt.
While Hunt co-hosted the Rocky Mountain Freedom Festival last month, an event decidedly aimed at the populist wing of the Republican Party, CCU’s Western Conservative Summit spoke to more moderate, or at least more ostensibly principled, elements of the Republican Party.
“In our movement there are people who have been nibbling away at the very principles that have made America strong and prosperous and free and have defined a conservative agenda,” said former Vice President Mike Pence, CCU’s newest 2026 faculty member, who refused President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “In fact, in many respects in recent years we’ve seen our movement toss about at a tempest of populism, protectionism, and on occasion even isolationism. On the world stage, we saw the administration’s initial stops and starts when it comes to Ukraine after that brutal and unprovoked invasion by Russia four years ago. I have held since that moment that America, as the leader of the free world, should continue to marshal the West to give the brave Ukrainian people what they need to repel and defeat that Russian invasion.
“At home, we’ve seen the rise of protectionist policies,” continued Pence. “The so-called ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs of a year ago represented the largest tax increase in American history, imposed on friend and foe alike. They impacted families, literally at the grocery store and at the counter. We’ve also witnessed populist policies that have taken on the free market tradition of our movement, nationalizing American businesses. The headlines this morning are that a dozen more businesses have received direct equity investments by the federal government. And we’ve seen price controls on everything from consumer credit to medicines. And perhaps most troubling to traditional conservatives like me is there’s been a marked departure, a marginalizing of our commitment to the sanctity of human life.”
During a legislative panel featuring Senators Barb Kirkmeyer (R-Weld County) and Lisa Frizell (R-Castle Rock) and Representatives Jarvis Caldwell (R-Monument) and Anthony Hartsook (R-Parker), elected officials also decried the statewide shift toward Trump-style populism.
“We have our extreme as well in the Republican Party,” said Kirkmeyer, who narrowly lost her gubernatorial primary to political newcomer, self-described “high-risk humanitarian,” and exorcist Victor Marx. “In the Republican Party, it used to be our principles were based on fiscally conservative, personal responsibility, limited government. Our latest litmus test is this: Should we pardon a convicted felon? If you answer no, you’re sideways with the Republican Party apparently, or at least the people who believe they’re the base of the party. Was the election stolen? That’s the next one. And the third one is, should we cut out people from voting in our elections? That is now what we face as Republicans, the questions we have to answer in primary.”
Caldwell, who recently came under fire from Rep. Brandi Bradley (R-Littleton) after her legislative aide, Schume Navarro, was fired, lamented Republican infighting. “One of the reasons I got very involved in the party, in the Republican Party, is because when I started getting involved I was concerned and I felt like there was too much infighting,” he said. “There was not enough coming together to focus on actually getting back to doing the things the Republican Party should be doing. I always like to say that people in the Republican Party in Colorado, they would fight over who the captain of the Titanic was after it hit the iceberg, and it’s already going down, they’re still fighting over who’s in control.”
Frizell and Hartsook have both run afoul of the reactionary gun advocacy group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, which has targeted both legislators for bills they’ve attempted to run. During a Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce last month, Frizell lamented the rise of “political animosity” not just within the Republican Party, but throughout society. Hartsook noted that the Democratic Party in Colorado might see its own brand of infighting soon.
“It will be very interesting coming into this next cycle here in January, when a great number of the Democrat candidates will likely win on the DSA side, and the moderate Democrats are going to have their share of problems within their own party,” said Hartsook. “That will shift an entire dynamic that hasn’t existed before. You’re going to have a very fractured Democrat party then. We will see how that plays out in committees.”
The spectre haunting the Democratic Party was a regular theme at the Western Conservative Summit. “The Democratic Party today is being overtaken by a progressive left embracing policies as radical as socialism, radical gender ideology, questioning America’s role as leader of the free world, and even questioning our support for our most cherished ally, Israel,” said Pence. “I’ve long said, and I’ll say again, if the world knows nothing else, let the world know this — America stands with Israel.”
Sen. John Carson (R-Highlands Ranch) commented on Democratic primary results during one of the breakout sessions at the Summit. “On the Democratic side, everything moved substantially to the left,” he said. “I knew several of the Democratic, what we call more middle-of-the-road legislators, who were defeated in primaries. [That] happened pretty much across the board in the primaries on the Democratic legislative side, where progressive socialist candidates won. The legislature in Colorado will be moving significantly to the left, whatever happens this November, because most of those folks are in districts where they will be easily elected.”
Like Kirkmeyer’s loss to Marx, primary voters largely rejected establishment, D.C.-connected incumbents, like Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), siding with 29-year-old Melat Kiros, who defeated DeGette in the Democratic primary on June 30 by a decisive 13 points, and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
“There’s a reason why over half of registered voters in the state of Colorado are now unaffiliated,” said Kirkmeyer. “There’s a reason, and I think that the Republican Party needs to dig deep and look within itself and understand why so many Republicans have changed their party affiliation. … How do we engage those unaffiliated voters? And one of the issues that we have is if we look at this last primary in June, the unaffiliated voters broke — and I think this was statewide, but it was certainly true in Douglas County — not 50-50, where half of them decided to vote their Democrat ballot and half of them decided the Republican ballot, two-thirds picked the Democrat ballot to vote. And so the question that we are grappling with now is: How do we get those two-thirds back who have historically voted Republican to vote Republican again in this general election?”
