For the first time since 2018, both the Democrats and the Republicans have contested races for the top elected office in the state.
On the Democratic side, longtime officeholders U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser are duking it out for their party’s nomination. On the Republican side, state Rep. Scott Bottoms, state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer and Victor Marx are looking to recapture the governor’s mansion for the GOP for the first time in more than 20 years.
Here’s an at-a-glance look at the major party candidates in the June 30 primaries who are looking to lead Colorado for the next four years. They are listed in the order they’ll appear on each ballot. The winners will face off in the November election, where voters will decide who will succeed term-limited Gov. Jared Polis.
Republicans
Scott Bottoms |
A longtime lead pastor of a church in Colorado Springs, in the state House, and he earned top billing on the Republican primary ballot after securing the most votes at the party’s statewide assembly in April.
He’s among the most conservative lawmakers in the state Capitol. His four years in office have been focused on pursuing antiabortion and anti-transgender policies, alongside attempts to lower the income tax. With the exception of legislation to create a new license plate, none of Bottoms’ bills has been signed into law or passed a first hearing vote.
Bottoms is a U.S. Navy veteran who has promised to ferret out corruption and “DOGE” state government — a reference to Elon Musk’s agency-gutting Department of Government Efficiency at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Victor Marx |
Marx is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and nonprofit leader. A political newcomer from Colorado Springs, Marx’s eclectic background includes claims to be the world’s fastest gun-disarmer, a mixed martial artist, a podcaster, an author and a “high-risk humanitarian” working to help women and children in conflict areas.
He has said he was physically abused beginning at an early age and that his stepfather forced him to murder a man when Marx was 7. He joined the military, ran mixed martial arts schools in Hawaii and later founded his nonprofit, All Things Possible Ministries.
Marx has significantly outraised his GOP opponents, avoiding debates and focusing instead on traditional conservative media and direct outreach to contact voters.
Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial hopefuls finally meet for an often-surreal debate
Barb Kirkmeyer |
Kirkmeyer, a longtime Weld County resident, served as a county commissioner between 1992 and 2000 and then between 2009 and 2020. In between, she served in Gov. Bill Owens' administration as the acting executive director of the Department of Local Affairs. In 2020, she was elected to the state Senate.
She later joined the powerful Joint Budget Committee, a six-member group of lawmakers that drafts the state budget each year. In 2022, she unsuccessfully ran for the newly created 8th Congressional District, losing a narrow race to Democrat Yadira Caraveo.
Kirkmeyer is a representative of the GOP's more traditional wing and is respected in a Democrat-dominated Capitol. She has been a frequent critic of Democrats' spending and policy priorities, while holding at arm's length the more right-wing elements of her own party.
Democrats
Phil Weiser |
Weiser first won public office as part of the 2018 blue wave that landed Democrats in all of Colorado's top offices. Before his election, Weiser served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and as the dean of the University of Colorado Law School.
His tenure as AG has included landmark consumer protection lawsuits, ongoing negotiations about the future of the Colorado River and an antagonistic stance toward the Trump administration, particularly in the president's second term.
Weiser was the first Democrat to announce his candidacy for the governor's office in what was expected to be a crowded field. Now, he's just one of two candidates remaining. He has pivoted his campaign to one of an upstart as he tries to overcome Bennet's decades in the public eye. He argues Colorado is best served by its senior senator remaining in Washington, D.C.
Michael Bennet |
Bennet entered public office in 2009 with an appointment by then-Gov. Bill Ritter to fill a Senate vacancy. He wasn't new to public life, having served as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools and as then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's chief of staff, after a stint working on corporate mergers for Phil Anschutz. But he was new to elected office.
He won his first election in 2010 in a relative nail-biter, winning 48% of the vote to Republican Ken Buck's 46%. His vote share has increased in both reelection campaigns since then, most recently with a 56%-to-41% romp of Republican businessman Joe O'Dea in 2022. Bennet ran for president in 2020, though he dropped out of the race early in the Democratic primaries.
He has made cost of living a central theme in his gubernatorial campaign and calls Trump's presidency a symptom of that larger economic problem. One of Bennet's marquee accomplishments as a senator was expanding the child tax credit and sending it out as direct checks to families. That expanded credit lasted only a year, but it helped cut childhood poverty by nearly half nationwide, .
Other candidates
Besides the major parties, the Unity Party of Colorado for governor on its June 30 primary ballot: Paul Noël Fiorino and Jeff Peckman.
Other third parties have nominated candidates for the November election. Unaffiliated candidates who are gathering signatures to make the fall ballot include Greg Lopez, who served a short stint in Congress in 2024 and earlier dropped out of the Republican race for governor.
