Craig Steiner spent 17 years building the technical infrastructure of the Colorado Republican Party from a desk in Douglas County. On Saturday he was elected to run it.
Steiner won the chairmanship of the Colorado Republican Party on a second ballot at the Orpheum Theater in Buena Vista, receiving 222 votes — 54.1 percent of the 410 cast — to defeat Jeremy Goodall of Colorado Springs, Joe Oltmann of Douglas County, and Curtis McCrackin of Delta County.
He is a software engineer by profession, and the two systems he built define his resume more than any title he has held. In 2012 he developed the Colorado Republican Caucus and Assembly System, known as CRCAS, the software the state party uses to manage its caucus and assembly process. Every administration for the past 14 years has relied on it. In 2017 he developed Voter Spectrum, a get-out-the-vote service he has run since then for county parties, candidates, and PACs across Colorado and in other states. At various times Voter Spectrum has been used by the county parties of Pueblo, Mesa, Larimer, Fremont, Adams, Weld, Douglas, and Denver — and by Maricopa County in Arizona, a county whose population approaches that of the entire state of Colorado.
His party officer experience is rooted entirely in Douglas County. He served as secretary of the Douglas County Republicans from 2009 to 2013, chair from 2013 to 2015, and chair of House District 43 from 2015 to 2016. He never ran for public office and never sought a statewide party position before this race.
Former state Sen. Ted Harvey, who nominated Steiner Saturday, said the county’s performance under Steiner’s chairmanship stands as the strongest evidence of what he can do at the state level. “When Craig was chair, we had a 97.2 percent Republican turnout — the highest of any large county in the state,” Harvey said. Harvey served five years in the Colorado House and eight in the Colorado Senate representing Douglas County. “There was nobody running who had served as county chair of any county party in the state. He’s the only one.”
Robin Webb, the current Douglas County Republican chair, said Steiner had been her quiet backstop since she took the position in February 2021. When she needed bylaw interpretation or help working through difficult situations, she called Steiner. He never asked for anything in return. “He has always helped us,” Webb said. “Not for any kind of recognition.”
Steiner’s endorsement list crossed factional lines that have divided the party for years: former House Speaker Frank McNulty, Harvey, former Secretary of State Scott Gessler, and former Minority Leader Patrick Neville. He built his speech around that coalition. “Colorado Republicans will win when we love beating Democrats more than we hate each other,” Steiner told the body before the vote.
He is fluent in Spanish — a detail he flagged on his campaign website as a practical asset for outreach to Univision and Telemundo audiences the party has largely failed to reach.
The party he inherits is in poor shape. Acting Chairman Eric Grossman told the body before balloting that the Colorado GOP carries more than $500,000 in total debt, with roughly $400,000 in outstanding bills, the result of what Grossman described as a prior administration that focused on “mentions” rather than running the party. The state party office is effectively nonexistent. Donor confidence has eroded. County parties have felt disconnected from state leadership for years.
Steiner addressed all of it in his campaign platform: reestablish a functioning physical office, restore RNC confidence, rebuild donor trust, and focus on get-out-the-vote as the party’s primary mission. He said he has no interest in continued intraparty lawsuits. “I have no axe to grind, no desire for retribution,” Steiner wrote on his campaign website.
The bylaws require him to submit a proposed budget to the Executive Committee by June 15 and a conflicts-of-interest policy within three months of taking office. An opt-out vote on whether the party will use the primary system or its own nominating convention in the next election cycle is scheduled for the fall of 2027 — a process Steiner knows better than anyone in the room, having built and maintained the assembly software that would run it.
His victory remarks ran four sentences. “All glory and honor to God and I am his servant,” Steiner said. “We’re going to win in November.”
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