The three Republicans vying to break Colorado Democrats’ grip on the governor’s mansion finally shared a stage Tuesday night for an hour that was light on policy but was full of questions and answers that likely have never been heard on a debate stage before.
The debate, opened with Rep. Scott Bottoms and Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer accusing the race’s frontrunner, nonprofit leader Victor Marx, of being a fraud and a con man. (“You’re mean,” he replied as his dog sat at his feet). It included Bottoms admitting that he had falsely claimed that every Venezuelan immigrant in the state was a gang member; he later said he might give a job to a prominent conspiracist podcaster, so long as the job wasn’t “around Jewish people.” (That drew an incredulous laugh from Kirkmeyer). The debate ended with Marx saying a prayer and Kirkmeyer, who represents the GOP’s more establishment wing, arguing that only she was qualified to serve as governor.
The debate repeatedly turned to Marx’s extensive personal history, and at one point, moderator Kyle Clark asked Marx how voters can tell if he’s lived one of the most extraordinary lives of any person to ever exist — or if he was just a liar. Marx describes himself as a “high-risk humanitarian” who has worked in conflict areas. He has said he was forced to kill a man as a child and that he has called in U.S. military strikes as a civilian.
He told Clark that he had documented all of his nonprofit’s work and that he stood by how he has portrayed his background.
“I can’t help it if I’ve lived an extraordinary life,” he said. “I’m an ordinary fella.”
The debate primarily served as a public vetting of the candidates’ backgrounds before the June 30 primary, and it was the first time that Bottoms, Kirkmeyer and Marx have shared a debate stage during the campaign. Marx pulled out of one debate last month and declined to participate in another, co-hosted by The Denver Post.
For Bottoms and Kirkmeyer, who hail from different ideological factions of the GOP, the debate was a chance to close with and criticize Marx while highlighting their own goals and plans. A longtime county commissioner who has become one of the legislature’s budget-writers, Kirkmeyer repeatedly highlighted her experience, at times correcting the other candidates.
“I’m the only one who has actually governed, and I have decreased taxes,” she said. “I have balanced budgets. I’ve built roads. I have backed the blue.”
Bottoms, a conservative pastor from Colorado Springs, said, without evidence, that he had been warned about Marx by the CIA and FBI. He said he would send the National Guard into Colorado cities that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. He said he would arrest those cities’ mayors, and he predicted that the state’s Democratic attorney general and secretary of state would be indicted and tried for treason by midsummer.
Where there was concrete policy, there was often some agreement. Bottoms and Marx said they would give former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters a full pardon; Kirkmeyer said she wouldn’t and said she didn’t believe Peters’ claims that Democrats have rigged elections in the state. All three candidates said they would work to roll back state laws that generally prevent state and local officials from working with federal immigration authorities, with Bottoms and Marx saying they would withhold funding from cities that don’t cooperate with immigration enforcement.
All three argued that Democrats’ electoral gains and political control in the state have steered Colorado in the wrong direction, and they pledged to right the ship.
“For the last eight years, we’ve had one-party control. Democrats have been in charge, and they have made a mess out of our state,” Kirkmeyer said. “They’ve made us unaffordable, unsafe; we’re unraveling.”
For Marx, the debate offered an opportunity to lean into the policy-light, charm-heavy approach that has helped him raise $2.6 million and catapult him from political newcomer to the frontrunner of the Republican primary campaign. He joked that he had cracked open the state budget recently and that it was “pretty complicated.” (“Not for me,” Kirkmeyer interjected.)
He has said he wasn’t a politician — earning another jab from Kirkmeyer — and said he would use his negotiating skills to work with the Democratic lawmakers who have near-supermajority control of the legislature. No Republican has been elected governor in more than 20 years, and whoever wins the Republican primary will face steep odds in reversing that trend.
Marx told Kirkmeyer and Bottoms that they couldn’t win, and he dismissed their criticism as “the rhetoric of someone who’s desparete, who’s already lost.”
“I’m a negotiator, not a debator,” he said. “That’s the difference we’re going to see tonight.”
Election Day for the GOP and Democratic primaries is June 30. The Republican winner will take on either U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet or state Attorney General Phil Weiser, who are competing for the Democratic nomination.
