EL PASO COUNTY — The Colorado Republican Party has found their next leader, after the last chair of the party resigned from the role early amid a "tremendous divide" in the party.
The former chair, Brita Horn, left the position in April, saying "under the continued threat of further division, legal attacks, and escalation within our party, it has become clear that those intent on prolonging this conflict will not stop."
Craig Steiner was selected as the new chair of the Colorado GOP. In that role, he told Denver7 he will work to elect more Republicans and try to unite the party, which is wrestling with infighting and financial trouble.
▶️ WATCH: Craig Steiner sits down with Denver7's Colette Bordelon
According to public contribution and expenditure reports, the Colorado Republican Committee had $9,812.67 as of June 1.
For comparison, the Colorado Democratic Party reported $424,117.81 on that same date.
Steiner will serve in this role until March 2027.
Denver7 sat down with Steiner to learn more about him. That full interview, which has been edited for clarity, is transcribed below.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Are you a lifelong Republican? What do you do for a living? When did you get involved in politics?
Got involved in politics in 2009 right after Obama got elected, and felt that I had to do a little bit more than just vote. So, I started attending executive committee meetings at the Douglas County Republican Party, and quickly got sucked in helping with that. And within six months I was elected secretary, and a few years after that I was elected Chairman of the Republican Party in Douglas County. And I am a software engineer. That's what I do for a living, and enjoy it a lot. I like looking at problems, trying to figure them out, and coming up with solutions.
Are you a lifelong Republican?
I've been a Republican since I registered to vote, except for a little bit of time when I was not a Republican after 2016, for about six months. Then I came back and got back involved in the party.
What happened in 2016?
Yes. As many people know, I was not a big fan at the time of Donald Trump. Certainly had some reservations, but obviously he won anyway, and I'm glad that he did. He gave us three good justices and I voted for him in 2020, and 2024 as well.
Not in 2016?
Nope.
You're becoming the chair of the party with not a whole lot of time until the June 30 primary. What are your biggest priorities from now until then?
We have a lot of legal and financial issues that are already baked into the party, and we're trying to work through those, and basically work with all the county chairs and the county parties to get Get Out the Vote up and operational, so that we're ready to go as soon as the primary is over. We have our candidates, and we'll start working, working the ground game.
Do you feel nervous at all about that timeline?
Well, we usually have a year after a chair gets elected. There's usually a little more than a year before the primary kicks in. So, this is a bit compressed. This was about a week between me getting elected [and] when the primary, when the ballots dropped, so it's a lot rushed. So it's a lot of work, but we have a lot of good people that are helping.
In terms of different philosophies within the Republican Party, between Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump's MAGA, where would you say you fall?
I'm Reagan. I grew up — the '80s are my decade. And good music, good movies, and good presidents. So, I'm just, I'm definitely a Reagan Republican.
The prior chair of the party, Brita Horn, resigned roughly a year into her term. Have you spoken with her about anything she learned while leading this party, and are there any lessons that you would take with you from that?
We exchanged a congratulatory text message after she heard that I won. I haven't talked to her, other than that. I've talked to other previous chairs of the party and got some insight from them, and I think the biggest thing that I — having not spoken with Brita since being elected — just, it's so important to respect and work with the volunteers. It's not, it's really not a top-down, or shouldn't be a top-down situation. We have 64 counties, each county has their county party with chairs, vice chairs, and secretaries, and they're all the volunteers, and you just have to be able to work with them, and not, you know, not be barking orders, telling them what to do. They actually know a lot of what to do, and they just need the support.
Did you speak with Dave Williams at all, the chair before?
I have had a conversation with him.
How did that conversation go?
It was informative about some of the stuff that was coming down the pike. I also talked to Kristi Burton Brown, who was the chair before that, and then also Steve House, who was the chair a few years before that, as well as the executive director under Ken Buck.
Out of those chairs, who do you think you'll most emulate?
I think I'm different than all of them, to be honest. So, we'll see how that goes. Yeah.
In Horn's resignation, she cited the "continued threat of further division, legal attacks, and escalation" within the party as a reason for her leaving. She said those "intent on prolonging this conflict will not stop." How will you address that?
It's already challenging. The honeymoon was about a week, so it's already getting pretty dicey. I said, when I was running, that I want to work with all sides of the party. Anyone that's willing to do the work to help elect Republicans, I want to work with them. And those that have disagreements, I'm willing to talk to them and hopefully work it out. But in the end, if we can't work it out and if they're just going to be complaining and making noise, that's what they can do. I'm going to work with the people who are actually willing to do the work and elect Republicans.
Is the state party's infighting dramatized, or is it as real as reports say?
There are problems. Definitely. I mean, we — there's a lot of Republicans in the state, and I think most of us are in agreement that we want to elect Republicans. There are some that seem to be more interested in the intraparty conflict and winning arguments within the party, and they're certainly present in the state central committee, but by and large, I think we mostly agree that we just want to elect Republicans, and that's what I'm going to work with them to do.
I recently read an editorial piece saying that Republicans have moved away from the issues that really matter to voters, the ones that we feel, the ones that we see every day, and they're more so gravitating towards, let's say, more hot button topics. Do you feel like that's the case in Colorado?
I don't think so. In Colorado, we have one of the highest costs of living in the country, and the Democrats have been in control, exclusive control, for about a decade. And I think people are starting to realize that if they're not happy with the way the state's going, there's one party currently responsible for that, and that's the Democrat party. So, I think we are focused on the right issues, and certainly the Democrats have not been. They've passed all kinds of regulations about housing and stuff that's not helping bring down prices. So, I think as people look at the direction that Colorado is going and realize that they're not happy with it, I think Republicans offer a good alternative.
You hinted at this earlier. What is the current financial state of the Colorado GOP?
We are in very dire straits right now. We have a lot of debt that came from the previous administration that we have to work through, and it's a challenge. And it's a challenge doing that fundraising when we have so much debt. So it's pretty, pretty, pretty desperate right now.
Is there a number you can assign to that debt?
I think it's in public record, but it's over $200,000.
Is most of that legal debt?
It's mostly legal debt. Yes.
How much does the state GOP currently have in the bank, as far as revenue goes?
Revenue has been very low. That's something that also hasn't happened a lot in the, you know — the previous administration wasn't raising a lot of money. And now we're in a situation that we aren't able to raise much either, because all this, all of the debt is there. So it's a very, very complicated situation. I think we're going to see that this cycle, there's going to be a lot more activity at the county level and the actual candidates, and we'll see what we can do to hopefully support them, but it's — we have a lot of stuff to sort through, to be honest.
Is there money in the bank, though, for the party?
Basically, not. Basically, not.
How does that impact the party to not have any money in the bank? How does that impact what you are able to do?
It impacts it a lot. Obviously, politics requires money. We wish it didn't, but the reality is it does. And the fact that we don't have the money and are in a situation where it's very difficult to fundraise because of the debt that we have, that impacts our ability to do the things that cost money. Luckily, there's also a lot of work that can be done, and it is done on the ground game with volunteers knocking on doors and talking to neighbors, and that part, luckily, isn't dependent on the finances. And so, we're going to continue to do that.
Did you attend the GOP State Assembly?
I did not. No.
Did you hear about the issues that the assembly saw?
Yes.
Do you believe that those issues are connected to the state party's infighting at all, or do you believe they were separate?
I don't know that they were connected to the infighting, although I think if there was less infighting, there might have been more assistance from all sides of the party to actually conduct a successful assembly. But, there were just a lot of logistical issues that were going wrong with that, and that's again — if I'm still chairman two years from now, I love that stuff. I mean, as county chair and secretary, we ran successful county assemblies — obviously a bit smaller than the state assembly — but looking for those bottlenecks and those ways to make things more efficient, that's my bread and butter. I look forward to that.
Do you believe that division [in the party] is connected to President Donald Trump? Has he played a role in dividing the Republican party?
No, I don't think so. Our conflicts here in Colorado I don't think have anything to do with Donald Trump.
Where do you see the conflicts as stemming from?
Conflict is mostly based on the whole question about that Prop 108 that passed a few years back, that opened the primary to unaffiliated voters, as opposed to before, when we had Democrats voting in Democrat primaries and Republicans voting in Republican primaries. Now it's open, and there is a contingency in the law that allows a party to opt out of that primary, which means it would just be an assembly caucus and assembly process, and that's where the division lies. The people that are very passionate about opting out and those who don't want to opt out. And so, that's where the division comes from.
The state party has pushed to try to exclude unaffiliated voters from the GOP primary in the past. Do you believe unaffiliated voters should be allowed to pick which primary they vote in?
I believe we should basically overturn 108 and go back to the system that we had for decades before we passed 108, which is Democrats vote in Democrat primaries and Republicans vote in Republican primaries, and unaffiliated, they're welcome to join either party before the ballots drop, and then participate in the primary of their choice. It's not very hard for them to participate, but it seems like if you want to have a part in choosing the candidate of a party, that you should at least be a member of the party, even if it's just for a day. Because you can affiliate, do it, and then you can leave.
What is the harm of having unaffiliateds pick, when they get two ballots?
Well, there's questions about gaming the system. If you're an unaffiliated voter and you want to harm one party or the other, or you don't care about what one party is doing, but you want to harm the other, then you can just go into that and then pick the worst candidate, so that we're stuck with whatever candidate that person wants. But it really just comes down to, again, if you have an organization of Republicans or environmentalists or the NRA, or whatever, it just makes sense that the people that are picking the leadership, or in this case the candidates for those bodies, actually be members of the body.
Have you endorsed a candidate for the Republican side of the gubernatorial race?
No, I have not. And as an officer of the party, I should not, and would not. It's against the bylaws, and we're supposed to be neutral, and I am neutral.
There's not one candidate you believe is the strongest candidate, that other Colorado Republican voters should look toward when they're filling out their ballot and thinking who should run against the next Democratic candidate for governor?
If I had an opinion on that, I would not express it. Again, we have to be neutral, and that's the job, and we will support whoever comes out of the primary.
That's the job of the primary voters, and we will run with whoever they select.
If Republican voters are torn when they come to that issue, where would you recommend they go for some insight on who might be the best pick to face off against either Phil Weiser or Michael Bennet?
Probably just reach out to the candidates, to their websites, just look for videos. I mean, just the standard stuff — Google and just find out what's out there. Other than that, I don't know what to say. It's standard due diligence.
Do you believe our elections in Colorado are safe and secure?
I think they could be a lot more safe and a lot more secure. I'm a data guy, a software engineer, and one of the big issues I have with any kind of system, in any state, is if we're counting ballots with machines, then those machines, the software that runs those machines, should be called what we call open source. They shouldn't be closed source. Open source in the computer world, like Linux, where you can actually look at the source code, programmers know how it works, can look at it, they can even modify it, and you know how it works because you're looking at the source code. Whereas closed source, like Windows, you just have to trust that it does what it's supposed to do, and that's the problem with a lot of our machines, is that it's not open source. So we have bipartisan teams that adjudicate the ballots, if there's any question about what the intent of the voter was. And they're bipartisan, because you want a Democrat and a Republican both looking at it and making sure that, 'Yeah, that's what was meant.' Then we send it into a machine that nobody knows how it works, and we just have to trust it. Our elections really should not be built on trust, they should be built on a system where there's agreement that it's working because it has to work, and I would suggest an open source solution for counting ballots if we're using machines.
Would that involve more human oversight?
Yes, to a certain extent. What I would advocate is, I mean, I don't even.. I don't think any Republicans or Democrats are talking about this, but I hope that they would. Open source would be 'Okay, we write the program. This is the program that counts the ballots, because there's always a program that does this work.' And the Democrats would have a copy of the source code, as was called, and so would the Republicans. We would, as in tougher engineers — one Republican, one Democrat would compile the program — we would have a program that would be executable. We would verify that they're the same, because we are looking at the same code, and there'll be a chain of custody. So that when the program is running, we know that we both agreed that this is the same software. There's nothing in there that could be counting things wrong. That's basically what open source is, and the public would be able to look too, not just that one Republican, that one Democrat. It would be open source, so everybody in the world can see how that works, if they want to.
Did Joe Biden win the election in 2020?
I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know. I have not investigated all states. I know that there's.. there were a lot of problems in Arizona. I've worked with data in Arizona, and they have a lot of issues there. I'm not familiar with every state, but to me that's an issue in the past, because regardless of whether or not he won, the issue is the same — that we do need more secure elections, and we absolutely need to secure them more than they are right now.
Do you believe that the 2024 presidential election was a secure election?
I think we have the same problems in every election, that they could be more secure for the reasons I mentioned.
Tina Peters convicted by a jury of her peers and a Republican district attorney. Do you believe that Governor Jared Polis should have waited to see how the Court of Appeals ruled on her case, or do you agree with the Democratic governor's decision to grant clemency to Miss Peters?
I do agree with that. The only thing is, I would wish he would have done it sooner. She definitely got a disproportionate sentence for the level of things that she was convicted of. So, I agree with it, but I wish he would have done it sooner.
Is that the only thing you agree with Governor Jared Polis on, or do you think there are other other commonalities you've seen with his tenure as governor?
I'd have to think hard about things that I agree with him on. You'd have to get back to me on that one.
Is it possible to unify the Colorado Republican Party?
We will see. We will see. It's definitely a challenge, and I remain optimistic, but it's all... it's ultimately, it's not.. it's not up to me. I'm going to try to lead by example by doing the work to elect Republicans, and I hope there'll be enough fellow Republicans joining me, that it'll get the job done, and we'll just have to see how unified we are.
Anything I did not give you the opportunity to say?
Just again that I think that the general consensus is that the people of Colorado think the state's going in the wrong direction. I would just ask them to look at who's been controlling the state for the last decade, and if they're not happy with it, maybe go ahead and consider some Republican alternatives. I think we have good solutions to the problems that we're actually facing in the state.
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