Extortion. Blackmail. Infidelity. Incompetence. Defamation of character. The soap opera surrounding Steve House, the newly elected chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, exploded in mid-June but appeared to fizzle when the GOP executive committee voted 22-1 in support of House on June 26 after a marathon closed-door session.

The bigger question is the impact on the career of Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman and whether any fallout affects her husband, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora, who now faces a formidable challenge from Democratic state Sen. Morgan Carroll.

The attorney general went from being House’s most high-profile supporter to arranging what appeared to an insurrection to force House to step down as chairman.

“This is something that no one would think of writing as a ‘House of Cards’ episode because it is so unbelievable,” said Republican Joy Hoffman, referring to the award-winning series that deals with political manipulation and power.

The question now: What’s next for the Colorado Republican Party? It has been unable to field a strong candidate for the U.S. Senate race, which originally was deemed as one of two Democrat seats that Republicans had a chance of winning.

And Colorado has the potential to decide which party wins the White House in 2016.

“You have an ultra swing state, the ultimate purple state, with mature Republican politicians,” said political commentator Eric Sondermann of Denver. “But you have a party apparatus that is behaving as if this is a sitcom as opposed to being in the center ring of the presidential race.”

Party spokesman Owen Loftus said House would have no comment, but he pointed out Republicans are raising money and registering voters.

“We are doing everything that needs to be done to win in 2016,” Loftus said.

The liberal group ProgressNow Colorado isn’t dropping the subject. In its latest news release, it demanded the congressman disclose what he knows about his wife’s role in what ProgressNow has referred to as “Burning Down the House.”

House maintains that Cynthia Coffman, former Congressman Tom Tancredo and Pueblo County GOP chairwoman Becky Mizel accosted him at a meeting at the Warwick Denver Hotel on June 15. The next day, he released a statement saying they were angry he didn’t hire a former state lawmaker as executive director and told him that unless he resigned, “false rumors that I have been unfaithful to my wife would be made public.”

“It was like walking into a meeting with Barzini and Tessio in ‘The Godfather,’ ” Jack Stansbery, the former director of the Colorado Republican Party, said in an opinion piece critical of the attorney general.

“How did Cynthia Coffman go from being Steve House’s very public mentor and champion to pulling the knives out for him three months later?” Stansbery asked.

And others wondered why Coffman worked alongside Tancredo, who has been at the center of several high-profile GOP controversies, including his decision in 2010 to run for governor on a third-party ticket.

“When I saw Tom Tancredo was involved, I said, ‘Oh, God, this can’t be good,’ ” said Jennifer Duffy, a senior editor with The Cooke Political Report.

Coffman, the state’s top law enforcement officer, was accused of engaging in blackmail and extortion. When she finally went public, she said House had promised people jobs and then maligned those people and made up “false accusations to justify not offering them employment.” At the end of the meeting, when House asked whether they had any more concerns, Coffman said she said, “Julie.”

Nothing that was said amounted to blackmail, extortion or threats, she said.

House’s opponents later released a string of text messages to The Denver Post between House and a Colorado Springs woman, but the messages did not convincingly establish any inappropriate relationship.

Adding to the strangeness of it all is that some of the same Republicans who backed incumbent Ryan Call during the chairman election in March are now House’s staunchest defenders.

Among them is Hoffman, chairwoman of the Arapahoe County Republican Party. She was part of the committee that counted the votes in the House-Call race.

“Steve House won that election fair and square,” she said. “Therefore, he is the person who should run the organization. Most of the people who have lined up that way were Ryan’s supporters, but we support the process.”

Among the Republicans disappointed to see House survive was Marilyn Marks, a voter-rights activist who had been one of his biggest supporters but now wants noting to do with him.

“I didn’t get along with Ryan Call,” she said, “but I’d take him back.”

Dick Wadhams, former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, said the GOP executive committee made the right decision.

“This party,” he said, “can’t afford to be changing chairs every three months whenever a group of chronic malcontents decides they disagree with the state chairman on a staff or any other issue.”

Lynn Bartels: 303-954-5327, lbartels@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/lynn_bartels

Staff writer Joey Bunch contributed to this report.