One of the bigger Republican disappointments of the 2022 election was losing the newly created 8th Congressional District despite an outstanding candidate.

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer was a long-time Weld County Commissioner and is now a state senator. She won a tough Republican primary and then doggedly campaigned in virtually every neighborhood in the district in the general election.

Meanwhile, her Democratic opponent, State Rep. Yadira Caraveo, rarely campaigned on the ground in the district. Caraveo was almost solely a television ad candidate. But in the end, it did not matter.

Kirkmeyer lost to Caraveo by just 1,632 votes, 114,377 to 112,745 while a Libertarian candidate received 9,210 votes. A case can be made that the Libertarian may have cost Kirkmeyer the election since it is assumed most Libertarians would vote for a Republican over a Democrat if those were the only two choices.

But there is a much bigger challenge for the eventual 2024 Republican nominee in the 8th CD than another Libertarian on the ballot.

The Colorado Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission deliberately drew the 8th CD lines to make it a very competitive district that either party could win. It also has the highest percentage of Hispanic voters of any congressional district in Colorado.

Closely mirroring the percentages of statewide registration numbers, as of May 1, the 8th CD has 208,060 unaffiliated voters (47.8%); 116,168 Democrats (26.7%); and 101,884 Republicans (23.4%).

Kirkmeyer ultimately lost due to the same political dynamic every other Republican candidate experienced, not only in 2022 but in the 2018 and 2020 elections as well, when Republicans failed to win competitive races at every level.

Former President Donald Trump was deeply unpopular with unaffiliated voters in 2022 after he lost Colorado by 14 points to Joe Biden in 2020. Trump’s approval was mired in the mid-thirties while he was disapproved by Colorado voters in the mid to high fifties. That anti-Trump stench certainly enveloped Kirkmeyer.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has announced the 8th CD will be one of the Democratic seats it targets in 2024.

While no Republican has yet announced, Kirkmeyer has indicated she is considering running again but she would be giving up her state senate seat where she is a respected member of the powerful Joint Budget Committee.

Several other potential candidates are also considering the race including former Weld County Commissioner and County Clerk Steve Moreno, Weld County Commissioner and Weld County Republican Chairman Scott James, Weld County State Rep. Gabe Evans, former Weld County State Rep. Dan Woog, Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine, and 2022 Republican U.S. Senate nominee Joe O’Dea.

Moreno, James, Evans, and Woog are all strong, mainstream conservative candidates who have won elections in Weld County and who match the competitive nature of the district.

O’Dea does not live in the district. The U.S. Constitution requires candidates for Congress to reside in the state but not the district. U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez was not initially a resident of the then-newly created 7th Congressional District when he ran in 2002.

Saine served in the Colorado House of Representatives before being elected a county commissioner in 2020 and she lost in the 2022 8th CD primary. Saine believes the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

The Republican state chairman, Dave Williams, a MAGA stolen election conspiracist who refuses to acknowledge the destructive impact Trump has had on Republican candidates, is now openly attacking Republican elected officials who do not conform to his own narrow ideology.

Williams recently attacked U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn and former Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, which is virtually unprecedented for a Colorado Republican state chairman. Interestingly, Lamborn overwhelmingly defeated Williams in the 5th Congressional District Republican primary election in 2020.

Despite a clear prohibition in Colorado Republican by-laws for a state chairman to get involved in primaries, Williams has signaled he will oppose those whom he derisively has called “RINOs”—Republicans in Name Only.

Williams now brags about an “agreement” he has reached with the Colorado Libertarian Party that would allegedly prevent Libertarian candidates from being “spoilers” in competitive races such as the 8th CD. But Williams essentially grants veto power to the Libertarians to say which Republican are unacceptable to them as potential Republican nominees.

Williams specifically named O’Dea as someone whom the Libertarians might object to and would therefore be unacceptable as a Republican nominee.

So any Republican who is considering running in the 8th CD in 2024, or for that matter any other Republican primary, should realize they are not only running against Caraveo, they will potentially be subjected to the ideological attacks of the Republican state chairman, who is beholden to Libertarian demands.

There is no doubt the 8th CD could be a real opportunity for Republicans to win in 2024. Caraveo has been a reliable vote for the inflationary and job-killing agenda of failed President Joe Biden.

But that opportunity will evaporate if Trump is the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and the GOP state chairman continues his crusade to cleanse the party of candidates who do not meet his ideological purity test.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who worked for U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong for nine years before managing campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.