What the hell? AZ GOP takes over funding for Colorado candidates!

The first time I heard about this was from TPM Reader this afternoon E.M. But even after EM shared a link confirming the story, I still couldn’t quite believe it was true. But it really is does seem to be true. Not only have reporters from several local news outlets covered it, they also have pretty clear photographic evidence. Mailers supporting at least Republican House candidates Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd are sent and paid for by the Arizona Republican Party.

So here’s the deal. The Colorado GOP appears to be under the control of a strange guy, Dave Williams, who has spent most of the party’s money trying to prevent people from firing him as party chairman and who has tried to nominate himself for a House seat to get, and… oh yeah, one more thing, Lauren Boebert. Other Colorado Republicans tried to oust Williams, but a judge ruled against them. El Paso District Judge Eric Bentley ruled against state party chairman Eli Bremer and confirmed that Williams is indeed chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. In any case, the point is that the Colorado GOP is basically the personal property of this guy Williams right now. Once that happened, Coloradans in at least two congressional districts received mailings for the local Republican candidate from the Arizona State Republican Party.

So what’s going on here? Why is the Arizona Republican Party, which has a contentious Senate and presidential race among other things, funding campaigns in Colorado?

Here’s what seems to be happening.

First, the Colorado races financed by the Arizona GOP appear to be in the 8th District, where Republican Gabe Evans is challenging Rep. Yadira Caraveo, and the 3rd District, currently held by Lauren Boebert and in which Republican Jeff Hurd faces Democrat Adam Frisch. (Remember, the savvy Rep. Boebert realized that her chances had become more or less hopeless in the 3rd District, which is essentially a GOP-leaning swing district, and decided to run in the GOP-safe 4th District instead to run where Rep. Ken Buck was After the judge ruled that Dave Williams was still the state party chairman and not contender Eli Bremer, the NRCC (the national GOP committee for the House of Representatives) basically said “F—that.” “, Bremer acknowledged de facto head of the state Republican Party and began working with him. The website ColoradoPols (from whose reporting I get almost the entire story) speculates here, almost certainly correctly, that the Arizona Republicans’ role in this is part of the NRCC’s deal with Bremer.

And why include the Arizona GOP? Well, remember my other reports on mailers this year: it’s about mail rate. Contracting states receive a super-low tariff for sending postal items as required by law. That is why all of those mailings I wrote about a few weeks ago were sent nominally under the auspices of the States Parties, although they were clearly planned, financed and directed in the background by another organization. You get a much better mailing rate.

Now, what the NRCC and the Arizona GOP are doing here is illegal, or at least in violation of federal law. You cannot simply use the contracting state as a transaction conduit to receive its preferential shipping rate. You can donate to the State Party and it can decide to send mailings. But at least in theory there must be some freedom of choice on the part of the contracting state. However, from my previous reporting on these Trump mailers being sent to partisan Democrats, I also believe that this law is largely unenforced and that it is not uncommon for parties to the agreement to essentially follow orders to do various things under their aegis carry out campaigns.

Still, I wonder if this breaks so much new ground that it could be an enforcement issue. A State Party has an obvious interest in supporting its own candidates within its own State. The Arizona Republicans’ interest in funding races in Colorado while trying to win multiple races in Arizona is so absurd that it may draw regulatory scrutiny.

Anyway, that’s the story. The Arizona GOP isn’t content with supporting Donald Trump, Kari Lake and other Arizona candidates. They settled in Colorado.