From: Lamborn for Congress <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2021 11:12 AM
Subject: What is best for Colorado Republicans?

Dear fellow Republicans,

Honorable people on both sides of the opt out question have spoken up. Many valid arguments have been made. Vital issues are at stake.

We all deplore the interference into the closed Republican primary that the 2016 initiative made. We all want Republicans to write our own rules without outside interference. And when the day comes that we can go back, either through legislation or initiative, we should.

In the meantime, the most important question is, what will lead to Republican victories? Without that we will stand on the sidelines and watch Democrats destroy our state.

I am convinced that if we opt out we will deeply and irretrievably offend many of the one million registered Republicans who will feel disenfranchised.

We will never again win close elections. This will prevent us from taking back the state House and state Senate. This will allow Jared Polis to remain Governor and with his legislative cohorts to run roughshod over Republicans in the years ahead.

It is not a sufficient response for those who support opting out to say, “We will devise a way (yet to be defined) that gives every Republican a say instead of the primary.” That simply is not true.

Without a primary election every Republican will not have a say as to which Republican names get on the ballot.

Colorado Republicans will then realize that a small group of party insiders, through some type of power play, made the decision for them as to who gets on the ballot. And they will be right. They will be discouraged and resentful and angry.

A party that is trying to catch up cannot afford this erosion of support.

When unaffiliated voters get a primary ballot in the mail and it only has Democrats on it, which party will they think cares about them and whose names will they remember? The first time average voters will see a Republican name on a ballot will be when they walk into the voting booth in November.

My friends, there are a lot of arguments on both sides of the opt out issue made by passionate and principled proponents. But if we want to win elections in the future, we must have a primary election that all Republicans can vote in, just as we have had for so many years.

Anything less than winning elections will do damage to the kind of future our great State deserves.

Save the primary.

Yours truly,

Congressman Doug Lamborn


P.S.
Our Colorado state motto is “Nil Sine Numine.” Nothing without Providence. Nothing without Diety. Let us all look to God for the better future only He can provide in these troubled times.