Lockwood ready to lead GOP as chair
Veteran political strategist Jonathan Lockwood says he’s ready to lead Colorado Republican Party
DENVER, Colo. — Republican spokesperson and political consultant Jonathan Lockwood announced Monday his intent to be Colorado’s next GOP chair.
“The party needs to rebuild and reimagine what is possible in terms of public policy, winning elections and securing Colorado’s future,” said Lockwood. “We need to move votes. We need to bring in new people, and we need to bring back the thousands of Republican who have left the party — nearly 5,000 left our party in just this past month alone. I have the proven political expertise and organizational skills to propel this party to victory in today’s political climate and digital environment.”
Lockwood has been a political strategist and spokesperson for upward of 50 lawmakers, candidates and organizations around the nation, from D.C. to L.A to Portland to Dallas. But the majority of his decade-long career, and his start, was in his home state of Colorado. Lockwood has been a spokesperson for successful Republican campaigns including the first-ever recalls of Colorado legislators. He also was a spokesperson for the successful effort to kill Amendment 66, which was a billion-dollar income tax hikes to bailout the state’s taxpayer-funded state worker-retirement system.
Lockwood spearheaded the opposition coalition to Amendment 69, a takeover of Colorado’s health care system that would have tripled income taxes for no guarantee of health care benefits. That ballot initiative was defeated 80–20 in large part due to the fact Lockwood created a wedge between abortion rights activists and single-payer progressives. Below is a clip from one of the ads: Planned Parenthood, ProgressNow Colorado and NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado joined the opposition coalition echoing Lockwood’s campaign under Advancing Colorado.
Lockwood debated state senators and other public figures, including at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and held forums with state lawmakers. Lockwood was the chief counterpoint to the leading Democrat backing the proposal in CBS, and other engagements.
In 2016, Lockwood set his sights on Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., holding him accountable for siding with unvetted refugees over Coloradans and most notably for his support of the Iran nuclear deal. The ad campaign Lockwood developed against Bennet remixed the infamous “Daisy ad” featuring a series of ten children counting down to a nuclear bomb explosion, each in their native language. Until then, not a single article was written about Bennet’s support for the accord, despite tremendous outrage and conversation in the political arena about it. The ad campaign was covered from Israel to New Zealand and garnered in broadcast value, 26 times the amount of the ad buy, Bennet went from being considered safe to being labeled vulnerable.
Lockwood also stood up for the Colowyo coalmine and generated media pressure that led to then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewel to meet with county commissioners, saving the coal mine and all of the jobs it boasted. The amount of jobs saved would have been the equivalent of nearly 100,000 jobs in Denver.
In 2014, Lockwood also worked to organize and mobilize tens of thousands of millennial voters. He hosted a Drowning in Debt pool party at the Warwick, triggered an election cycle debate over the internet sales tax, and managed hundreds of young, recurring volunteers to hold accountable then-Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo. Lockwood charged Udall as waging a “war on youth.” That cycle Cory Gardner was elected to as Colorado’s junior Senate seat.
Prior to these roles, Lockwood served as the spokesperson for the Colorado House Republicans and worked in former House Speaker Frank McNulty’s office. Lockwood also worked as an area political director in 2012 for then-Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., on his successful and contentious re-election campaign.
Lockwood has both a master’s degree in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Metropolitan State University of Denver. Lockwood’s communications and campaign chops are also flanked by philosophical and policy experience.
“The Republican Party needs to get back to its roots of prudence, limited government and free markets,” Lockwood said. “I am running for Colorado GOP chair to lead the party to victory. We don’t have to look at things as if we can win this one or two seats here, and maybe run a good go at the governor’s office. We will flip this state red.”
Lockwood is a graduate of the Leadership Program of the Rockies and was both a management and a communications fellow at the Charles Koch Institute. He was a legislative fellow with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and serves on the board of policy advisors for The Heartland Institute, a national free-market think tank. Lockwood got his start in the private sector working in music publicity and operations for Tsunami Publicity and AEG Live.
Lockwood will be releasing more information and will be taking the necessary steps to meet with members of the party, activists, and others in coming weeks. He aims to “build a slate of liberty-oriented Republicans who will diversify the party, crank up the volume, rake in campaign cash and win.”
