{"id":41600,"date":"2022-03-16T11:28:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T17:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fed-up-conservative-moms-are-winning-in-colorado-and-they-dont-plan-to-stop\/"},"modified":"2022-03-16T17:28:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T17:28:26","slug":"fed-up-conservative-moms-are-winning-in-colorado-and-they-dont-plan-to-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fed-up-conservative-moms-are-winning-in-colorado-and-they-dont-plan-to-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Fed-up conservative moms are winning in Colorado, and they don\u2019t plan to stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Seven
Seven members of the Liberty Girls on March 15, 2022, in Highlands Ranch. About 315 women make up the Liberty Girls, a group organized by Donna Tompkins (lower right). \u201cWe're trying to stand up for things in our state and county and for electing people that we think will represent our values for our kids,\u201d Tompkins said. (Olivia Sun\/ The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Loveland grandmother Mickie Nuffer grew more concerned by the day as she watched people on television shouting about \u201cdefunding the police\u201d and later, in her own county, when businesses required proof of vaccination to enter.<\/p>\n

In Highlands Ranch, mom and former teacher\u2019s aide Donna Jo Tompkins was growing increasingly frustrated with mask mandates, last-minute school quarantines and the latest curriculum controversy: critical race theory.<\/p>\n

And in Arvada, Angela Marriott was alarmed by the way people on Nextdoor pounced on any conservative sentiment, especially against masks, and was exasperated pretty much every time she watched the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would turn on the news and just be enraged within minutes, watching our police being abused, properties being destroyed and trying to erase our history with tearing down and damaging statues,\u201d she said. \u201cI just decided one day I had had it. I was going to take this negative energy and put it into something constructive, to fight for freedom and my children\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"About
About 315 women make up the Liberty Girls. \u201cWe say that we love our country. We love our families, and we love God. That\u2019s who we are,\u201d said founder Donna Jo Tompkins. (Olivia Sun\/The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

None of the three women had ever been political, but said they were compelled by the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown and other government policies of the past two years to get involved. Similar to the way Democratic women mobilized after the election of former President Donald Trump, conservative women who never before attended a caucus or canvassed a neighborhood are organizing in living rooms across Colorado.<\/p>\n

Tompkins formed Liberty Girls in Douglas County, which has grown from about 20 women who first gathered in her house for coffee and snacks a year ago to more than 300, all standing, she said, for God, country and family.<\/p>\n

Nuffer is creating her own version, called the NoCo Ladies for Liberty, with about 250 members in Larimer, Weld and Boulder counties. Marriott, meanwhile, started Arvada Grassroots Conservatives, which also includes men. And in the Douglas County town of Castle Rock, a group called We the Women formed last year.<\/p>\n

The rise of the liberty mom voting bloc is the latest in a line of suburban-women influence on elections, from the middle-class \u201csoccer moms\u201d of the 1990s, to the \u201csecurity moms\u201d after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to the \u201crage moms\u201d exasperated by Trump and racial injustice.<\/p>\n

Liberty Girls worked to flip Douglas County School Board<\/div>\n

Tompkins, feeling helpless about the state of the nation, logged onto a Facebook group for conservative women in Colorado and began sending private messages to women in the group who were her Douglas County neighbors. Immediately, she had 30 women who were interested.<\/p>\n

Their first meeting last March turned into an emotional, four-hour bonding session, as women circled their chairs in Tompkins\u2019 living room and unloaded about how the pandemic had affected their families. One woman who was pregnant with her fourth child told the group her toddler had regressed and had received no services. A Cherry Creek teacher said she left her job because she couldn\u2019t stand the level of politics that had seeped into classrooms. \u201cHow are we in this place?\u201d Tompkins recalled them asking. \u201cHow am I going to raise my kids?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cDelegates\u201d
\u201cDelegates\u201d of the Liberty Girls, who hold local positions of leadership within the group, wear pins to events. (Olivia Sun\/The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But, going forward, the group hasn\u2019t been about venting. \u201cI didn\u2019t want this to be a group where we sat around and grumbled and cried,\u201d Tompkins said. She got to work setting up workshops so the Liberty Girls could learn about the upcoming school board race, held in November, and the caucus process where voters gather by precinct in the spring to start selecting GOP candidates.<\/p>\n

As the group grew, Tompkins, who used her maiden name in this story, vetted each person, requiring that anyone who wanted to attend first call her to answer questions about their politics. She said she does this to prevent an interloper or a mole with a hidden tape recorder from infiltrating one of their meetings.<\/p>\n

The caution is necessary, she said, in a time when people are divided and attacks are sometimes vicious, particularly after the new conservative school board abruptly fired the superintendent, setting Douglas County parents against each other. Liberty Girl meetings are a place where \u201cyou can speak your truth and not be censored or canceled,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The meetings grew so quickly that Tompkins started placing chairs on her second floor, where a foyer with a railing overlooks the living room. They called it mezzanine seating.<\/p>\n

Liberty Girls\u2019 first big push was the school board election, where four conservative candidates were attempting to flip the left-majority board that had been in power since 2018. They packed school board meetings. They knocked on doors, reaching Douglas County residents who no longer had kids in school and hadn\u2019t kept up with school politics. They spoke of mask mandates, Zoom classrooms and 10-day school quarantines.<\/p>\n

And they won.<\/p>\n

In February, three months after the new board was elected, the 4-3 majority fired Superintendent Corey Wise and is now searching for his replacement.<\/p>\n

\u2018Here is what caucus is. Go do your thing\u2019<\/div>\n

But the Liberty Girls\u2019 work is far from over, Tompkins said. On caucus night in early March, 60 Liberty Girls were elected as delegates, precinct committee chairs and election judges. The group has hosted candidates in a heated race to replace the county\u2019s longtime sheriff and is working its way up the ticket toward the Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

Members aren\u2019t told which candidates to support, only how to get involved in the process. \u201cWe are really wanting to stand on our own, apart from the GOP,\u201d Tompkins said. \u201cWe are a group of intelligent women who are getting smarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jen Masten, a Highlands Ranch mom and member of Liberty Girls, attended caucuses for the first time in her life earlier this month and was elected a delegate for the next two years, meaning she\u2019ll attend assemblies and have a role in selecting candidates for the GOP ticket.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was doing my due diligence by showing up and voting Republican and being on the PTO and by finding people that I really liked that were running and being behind them,\u201d Masten said. \u201cWhat Liberty Girls has done for me is educate me, and it\u2019s educated me without telling me what to do, but how to do it. They said, \u2018Here is what caucus is. Go do your thing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Being
Being a part of the Liberty Girls fosters friendship and support, said one member. \u201cIn the beginning, I felt kind of lost. You\u2019re coming out of 2020 feeling really isolated and feeling alone. And then when we got together last March, we were all just crying. \u2026 It\u2019s much easier to tackle politics as a group, and to discern together. That really has brought us together and made this a group of action.\u201d (Olivia Sun\/The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Masten summed up the group this way: \u201cWe\u2019re women that love God, our family and country. We\u2019re activists for medical freedom. We are activists for the truth. And we want to preserve our constitution. Everyone should carry the constitution around and know exactly what it says and know when our rights are being infringed upon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her enthusiasm, and that of many others, was obvious at GOP caucuses at ThunderRidge High School, where about 150 voters met by precinct, separated into various classrooms and a computer lab.<\/p>\n

Fired-up attendees talked about secretary of state candidate Tina Peters, calling her a \u201cgood guy\u201d despite her involvement in an election tampering scandal, disgust over Colorado\u2019s sex education law that requires lessons to include dialogue on consent, and anger at term-limited Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock for supporting Colorado\u2019s red flag law that allows a judge to temporarily remove a person\u2019s firearms. Outside the high school, one woman shouted \u201cRed wave! Red wave!\u201d<\/p>\n

Stu Parker, chairman of the Douglas County Republicans, said voters \u2013 particularly women \u2013 are more engaged than they\u2019ve been in years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got involved in the school board race and started to understand what\u2019s going on,\u201d he said. \u201cThey saw what happened in the pandemic and they are fed up and wanting change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loveland group fights to preserve Christian values, against abortion<\/div>\n

Nuffer, in Loveland, said the collective energy is coming from a desire to improve life for her children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n

She decided to start NoCo Ladies for Liberty after Sherronna Bishop, a former campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, interviewed Liberty Girls founder Tompkins. Bishop, who calls herself \u201cAmerica\u2019s Mom,\u201d posts her interviews with conservative politicians and activists on her website.<\/p>\n

\"NoCo
NoCo Ladies for Liberty founder Mickie Nuffer holds a meeting in her living room in Loveland. (Provided by Mickie Nuffer)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

At first, Nuffer dismissed the idea of leading a group, telling herself she was \u201cjust a mom and Nana.\u201d Then the 59-year-old decided not to \u201cdisqualify\u201d herself, realizing that her status as a mother and grandmother was her \u201cgreatest strength and my largest \u2018why.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want to see my family continually stripped of their constitutional rights,\u201d she said, adding that she regrets not doing more sooner in life to \u201cpreserve our American way of life, founded on our Judeo-Christian values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nuffer, who is a health coach, heard Tompkins speak on Jan. 20. And on Feb. 10, she had 38 women in her home who came despite a snowstorm. Nuffer, who also vets attendees, wanted like-minded women to learn together in a non-intimidating environment, one where no question about the political process was too elementary.<\/p>\n

She and a few others circulated an invitation promising \u201cconservative community, cocktails and civics,\u201d and invited the local GOP chairman to teach a room full of women enjoying wine and cheese about the caucus process. A month later, 26 women from the group were elected as delegates, 16 as election judges and nine as precinct committee chairs \u2013 and that\u2019s just among the 71 who attended the NoCo Ladies for Liberty\u2019s last meeting.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also holding forums for the local sheriff\u2019s and state House seats, and women from the three-county group are considering branching out to start their own groups in their hometowns. NoCo Ladies for Liberty is also working on a website to communicate with each other, since many of its members quit Facebook over the platform\u2019s censorship policies.<\/p>\n

And last week, Nuffer brought a carload of women to the state Capitol, where they protested against a bill that would affirm abortion rights in Colorado. The experience was a first for many in the group, who were jarred by a person shouting in an air horn to drown out the words of the anti-abortion speakers, a woman who was topless and a request by police that the NoCo group stay within the bounds of yellow tape for their own protection, she said.<\/p>\n

Women in the group are getting involved in ways they would never feel comfortable doing alone, she said. NoCo Ladies for Liberty is restoring a lost sense of community among women, Nuffer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do better in community,\u201d she said. \u201cThe way that our country has changed, our lives have changed, women now, many of them have to go to work. What has happened is when we\u2019re working a 9-to-5 job, trying to raise our children, something has had to give. It\u2019s in large part been our social interaction with other women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NoCo
NoCo Ladies for Liberty, which formed this year, brought a group to the state Capitol last week to protest an abortion rights bill. (Provided by Mickie Nuffer)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
\u2018A bunch of passionate momma bears\u2019<\/div>\n

Marriott, who has a 14-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son, has scheduled candidates for City Council all the way to the governor\u2019s office to speak to her Arvada group. Plus, the group connects via Zoom to meetings of the Liberty Girls and other groups around Colorado when a statewide candidate is speaking at a meeting, said Marriott, a property manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just a bunch of passionate momma bears,\u201d she said, echoing language used by Republican women all the way up the ticket.<\/p>\n

Women are leading the GOP in this year\u2019s statewide elections, including for governor, the U.S. Senate and secretary of state. Heidi Ganahl, a University of Colorado regent and the Republican front-runner to challenge Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, calls herself a \u201cmom on a mission.\u201d Deborah Flora, who is emerging as a top Republican in the race to unseat U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, said she\u2019s running \u201cbecause I want to be able to look at my children in the eye, and yours, and we have to be able to say to them, \u2018We did everything that we could do in this day to hand them the same liberty that we enjoy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As Marriott\u2019s group has grown, gathering in her house for her creamy Italian sausage pasta and another member\u2019s now-famous soups, she\u2019s booking candidates for various races and scheduling educational workshops. The group has held a concealed weapons class, a session on the U.S. Constitution and events on \u201cprepping,\u201d including how to grow microgreens and prepare in other ways for a massive food shortage. Some in the group have volunteered for election audits, analyzing Jefferson County ballots from 2018 and 2020.<\/p>\n

They campaigned for conservative candidates for the school board, though they lost, and fought against former Jefferson County Public Health Director Dawn Comstock, who resigned last month. Marriott was particularly active in fighting against COVID-19 testing for students in order to attend sports practice.<\/p>\n

The Arvada group has grown from 10 to about 130 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really the moms that stood up and started to fight,\u201d Marriott said. \u201cIt was eating me up and I thought, \u2018I have to take this and turn it into something constructive.\u2019 We have to fight for our freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/div>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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