The Colorado Republican Party is considering switching its presidential contest to a caucus in the event that Donald Trump is ultimately ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot following a bombshell Colorado Supreme Court ruling.
The prospective switch, which would come with major hurdles, would ensure that Coloradans are still able to cast their vote for the former president after the state’s high court kicked him off the primary ballot — and that the state GOP would still able to award delegates to him at the national party’s nominating convention.
Making that change would require permission from the national Republican Party, preparations for a larger caucus in March, and cooperation from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, which runs elections in the state.
A switch to a caucus system would also depend on the outcome and timing of a prospective U.S. Supreme Court ruling on whether Trump’s name must remain off the Colorado primary ballot — unknowns that leave in question how, when and whether the state party would move forward with a change.
“We’re at the mercy of the U.S. Supreme Court. We’re not sure what their timing is going to be. We’re figuring it out as we go,” said Dave Williams, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. “But we’ll make our preparations to convert to a caucus while this is all playing out.”
“And if it [a Supreme Court ruling] does not go in our favor, we’ll plan to do a caucus. But if it does go in our favor, then nothing will change,” Williams added.
In emails and phone calls, other state and national GOP officials indicated that making the switch would be tricky and contingent on several dynamics that, for the time being, are unclear.
The first step, Williams and others explained, would be for the Colorado GOP to request a waiver from the Republican National Committee that would allow the state party to award delegates based on the results of a caucus system, not a primary election.
In October, the Republican National Committee had approved plans from all 50 state parties about how they would hold their nominating contest and award delegates for the national nominating convention in July 2024.
Williams predicted that he and other Colorado GOP officials would, “likely in the next week or two” approach the RNC to “start the process of obtaining a waiver in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t rule in our favor.”
He said the process would be made easier by the fact that the Colorado state party had in September, “embedded” in its plan to the RNC a “contingency” in the event that Trump were to be removed from the ballot that essentially “gave notice that we could ask for a waiver to convert from the primary system to caucus system.”
RNC rules dictate that such a waiver can be granted to a state Republican Party in cases where the national committee determines that doing so “is in the best interests of the Republican Party” or when it’s “not possible for a state Republican Party to hold the electing, selection, allocation, or binding of delegates to the national convention in accordance with the process(es) certified to the Republican National Committee.”
The RNC’s executive committee, which would vote on such a waiver, is next scheduled to meet at its winter meeting in Las Vegas at the end of January.
Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Trump’s candidacy in the state’s primary next year is prohibited on constitutional grounds because he engaged in insurrection by inciting a riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The first-of-its kind ruling stems from a lawsuit that focused on a little-known provision in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Similar challenges in other states have proven unsuccessful.
In its opinion, the court explicitly stated that Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold “may not list President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him.”
The court put its decision on hold until Jan. 4 to allow for further appeals.
It also said that if the matter reaches the U.S. Supreme Court before that date, the pause will remain in effect during that time and Colorado will be required to include Trump’s name on the primary ballot pending action by the Supreme Court.
The Trump campaign has signaled that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is imminent. As a result, the broader outcome will be mired in legal limbo for several weeks or months.
The Colorado GOP nevertheless said it could begin the process of holding a caucus instead of a primary in the coming weeks.
For decades, Colorado held caucuses as its nominating contests for presidential candidates. But in 2019, voters approved a measure that switched to a primary election system in presidential races, a change that was first implemented in 2020.
But Colorado voters still caucus in contests for lower offices.
Colorado’s presidential primaries are currently scheduled for Tuesday, March 5. But state Republicans already have scheduled for caucuses across the state for other offices on March 7 explained Vera Ortegon, a Republican National Committeewoman from Colorado.
“Hopefully, we will win the appeal to the Supreme Court, and his name will appear on the ballot. But if not then of course, we have a plan B — to elect the presidential candidate through the current caucus system,” she said.
(Ortegon noted that there is an additional day of caucusing scheduled for March 9 for specific rural communities.)
How exactly the party would take on expanding the existing statewide caucuses in such a narrow timeframe remains unclear.
But, if Republicans moved forward with switching to a caucus system, another likely hurdle would be any challenges to the changes from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.
Williams said that, “the only thing we would [ask] of them is request that they not send out [Republican] primary ballots.”
“But if they refused us for whatever reason, then we’d tell them ‘OK, fine,’” he added. “We’re just going to ignore the results. We are not going to adhere to a system that has Donald Trump off that ballot.”
Jack Todd, a spokesperson for Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, retorted that “Colorado law does not allow a presidential primary election to be cancelled at the request of a political party.”
“If the Colorado Republican Party attempts to withdraw from the presidential primary or ignore the results of the election, this would likely be a matter for the courts,” Todd added.
Todd declined to respond to questions about whether that meant Griswold’s office would file a suit to stop an effort by the state GOP to switch to a caucus, saying he “can’t speak to hypothetical scenarios.”
Griswold told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner on Tuesday night that she “will follow whatever court order or decision is in place by the time of [ballot] certification.” Griswold’s deadline for ballot certification is Jan. 5.
“If the United States Supreme Court decides to take this case, I’m sure that they will consider that certification in the state of Colorado is very quickly approaching and will issue an order or a decision quickly to make sure that we are in compliance with the law,” Griswold said.
Potentially further complicating the situation is that one of Trump’s opponents, Vivek Ramaswamy, has vowed to “withdraw” from the GOP primary ballot in Colorado if Trump’s name remains off the ballot and challenged the other candidates to do the same.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all criticized the court’s decision, arguing that judges should not play a role in the election process. But DeSantis said explicitly that he would not remove himself from the ballot in solidarity with Trump.
All four have already met all criteria from the Colorado Secretary of State to appear on the primary ballot.
