Nine months ago, Victor Marx was a political unknown. Outside of his own orbit, he was perhaps most familiar to parts of the Christian nonprofit world, to listeners of a certain brand of podcast and to anyone who’d seen videos of him laying claim to the title of .
The Republican gubernatorial candidate has attended only one debate alongside his two opponents. He’s never run for office before and has few prominent Republican officials backing him. His backstory is extensive and full of the sort of bizarre detail that, in a pre-Donald Trump world, would likely have caused his campaign to implode before it left the launchpad.
And after the June 30 primary, Marx very well may be Colorado Republicans’ candidate for governor.
“This is pretty wild,” he said recently, standing in front of his nonprofit’s indoor shooting range, a handgun holstered in his waistband. “Someone like me, running for governor.”
The comment appeared to come less from bewilderment at how far he’d come than from vindicated confidence. And it belied what has been a thoroughly, carefully atypical campaign — one that has leaned on the 60-year-old’s charm, his direct outreach to voters and his use of the now-familiar pitch of a political outsider who shares voters’ distaste for elected politicians and campaign-speak.
As he’s outraised other Republicans and seized headlines, Marx has also been bombarded with questions about his background from reporters and from skeptical conservatives.
He’s said he was forced to kill a man as a child and, when asked by , he replied, “Does it matter?” He once ran martial arts schools in Hawaii and is a black belt in “Cajun Karate,” a form of martial arts created by his dad, Karl.
He describes himself as a “high-risk humanitarian” who trains law enforcement and provides trauma relief to people in the United States and overseas, including in conflict zones. Another humanitarian confirmed that Marx was in Iraq a decade ago and that, though he was largely behind the front lines, he was present when medical workers came under fire at least twice.
Marx also talks frequently about praying to free people from demons that, , can be attracted by porn or unmarried couples living together. In one 2023 podcast, Marx and that, after his dog identified a supernatural presence in a couple at a pool, he set a woman free from “five demons that had been assigned to her.”
In an interview, Marx said it didn’t matter if reporters believed him and that he was comfortable with scrutiny of his background, even as it’s drawn .
Voters will decide, he said, arguing that he was qualified because of their support.
“Judge us by the ability to run a campaign,” he said, “and look at the guy who’s never done it, nothing — but stepped into it, was aware of the problem and the need, (and) assessed what needed to be done to win. I have avoided some pitfalls of doing it the old way, but the action I’ve taken has broken records.”
Marx raised $2.67 million through late May, the most of any Republican gubernatorial candidate up to that point in at least 20 years. To get on the ballot, he submitted more than 28,000 signatures, more than any gubernatorial campaign since at least 2014. Those signatures were not verified because Marx earned ballot access through an assembly vote.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who did not return messages seeking comment; musician Ted Nugent; three county sheriffs; and Mark Geist, who defended the U.S. embassy in Libya in 2012. (Marx’s campaign has also paid Geist and his wife for consulting and security work.)
Dick Wadhams, a former chairman of the state GOP and critic of Marx, said Marx had run “the strangest campaign I’ve seen in all the years I’ve been involved in this business.”
He argued that Marx’s beliefs about demons and his assertions that he’s helped tens of thousands of women and children — some amount of which he’s claimed to have rescued, alongside more he’s said he’s helped by providing them stuffed animals and trauma support — were so outlandish that they would cost the party in down-ballot races in November.
Kristi Burton Brown, another former state party chair, questioned Marx’s apparent disinterest in policy discussions and debates. His opponents, state Rep. Scott Bottoms and state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, have called him a fraud and a con man; both said they would not support him should he win the nomination.
‘New territory for a political campaign’
But Wadhams and Burton Brown both acknowledged that Marx’s campaign had proven successful, marshalling what Wadhams described as Marx’s base of support and expanding it with direct mail and “very aggressive social media outreach.” Marx’s campaign has spent $725,000 on mailers — nearly what Kirkmeyer and Bottoms have raised combined — and he’s leaned into videos and podcast appearances.
When the moderator of one debate, a conservative talk show host, sent Marx a letter pressing him for specifics on his background, Marx skipped the event and organized a rally instead. His campaign later released photos showing more people had attended his event than the debate.
“We are in such new territory for a political campaign in Colorado — frankly, in the nation,” Wadhams said, incredulous at Marx’s TV interviews.
Marx has eschewed dense policy discussions — an intentional choice, he said, to let voters’ eyes adjust to his background.
That hasn’t been a concern for his supporters. Marx is likable, which is “gold” in politics, said Jeff Hunt, a conservative activist and radio host. He first met Marx at , where Marx teased his candidacy.
” ‘He doesn’t have policy chops’ — alright, well, he still outraises everybody,” Hunt said. ” ‘He’s got a unique background’ — well, he’s still driving more people to his events. ‘He won’t debate’ — he still has energy and big rallies. (His opponents) are trying to figure out an angle. But when you’re dealing with somebody who has such a big personality force, itap just not landing.”
Hunt continued: “I’ve told him (that) if I was a political strategist, I would not ever have told him to tell the stories he has told or the things he has written about in his book … Thatap part of the enjoyment I have in this whole process. Alright man, you are 100% yourself.”
Marx has said he was the victim of profound abuse as a child. In his memoir, he wrote that his stepfather made him behead a cat at age 3. Marx wrote that at age 7, his stepfather put his hand around his own and forced him to shoot and kill a man. His stepfather, he alleges, then smeared blood on him and buried the man beneath the house.
The sheriff of Simpson County, Mississippi, where the shooting allegedly took place, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
A Marine veteran who moved to Colorado to work for Focus on the Family, Marx founded All Things Possible in 2003 “to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ through outreaches and crusades primarily to youth,” according to the group’s first tax filing. By 2024, ATP’s annual revenue had surpassed $7.6 million.
A closer look at ministry
ATP has done outreach to youth in prisons and focused on “trauma response,” Marx said, which includes handing out stuffed animals loaded with recorded prayers and songs. In an email, All Things Possible said the ministry was separate from Marx’s campaign. Marx said he and his wife resigned from the group after he announced his candidacy.
But overlap remains: Marx’s campaign address is at the ministry’s training center outside of Colorado Springs, which is also the home he sold to the nonprofit for nearly $3 million in 2024. His campaign manager was also listed as an ATP board member on its most recent tax returns.
Marx has said he and his group have worked overseas, including in Iraq, Syria, Israel and southeast Asia. Its tax filings show it has spent more than $4.3 million on those efforts in recent years, though those documents also state ATP had no standing personnel or offices in those countries.
Dave Eubank, the American head of the Myanmar-based , said he met Marx in California roughly 15 years ago. He later invited Marx to Mynamar, where Eubank’s group supports rebels and civilians caught in that nation’s civil war.
The trip served as Marx’s introduction to “high-risk humanitarianism.”
Within a year, Marx asked if Eubank and his medics would like to go to Iraq to help civilians amid fighting between the Islamic State military group and Kurdish and Iraqi military units. Eubank said Marx’s group funded his efforts.
“I think he came to Syria once while we were there, briefly, and then he came to Iraq multiple times while we were there,” Eubank said, praising Marx as a friend and ally. “Usually it was during some lull in the fighting, but not always. He was in at least one … maybe two engagements with us, when we were providing medical care when we came under direct fire.”
Marx has also said he called in an airstrike on Islamic State militants. Eubank said he hadn’t heard that story before it came up during Marx’s 9News interview in late May. When Eubank was working in the Middle East, he said, the U.S. military had dropped smoke at his request to cover escaping civilians. (The Post sought comment on Marx’s claims from U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East. In an email, an unnamed representative said military officials “have nothing for you on this.”)
Marx said ATP’s goal is now to “equip and encourage” law enforcement . He said his group helped train law enforcement involved in .
Abigail Meyer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals Service, which led the operation, said that, “according to those who ran this operation,” Marx’s group was not involved.
Political outsider or not, in the gubernatorial campaign — audits of the state budget, support for police and immigration enforcement, strict Medicaid work requirements, tax relief, school choice — will be largely familiar to voters in the Republican primary.
His website’s includes a number of questionable statutory and constitutional citations; one statute it references has been repealed, and another purports to link a constitutional prohibition on sex discrimination to homeowner’s insurance spikes. He told The Post that the platform was written by an “attorney who did work for Elon Musk.”
Marx said he’s withholding some plans for the general election. Besides, he argued, the GOP primary wouldn’t decided on policy.
“I don’t think Barb or Scott … are three degrees different on policy positions (from me),” he said, referring to Kirkmeyer and Bottoms. The real difference, he argued, will be who can convince voters they can win.
“And I think, just naturally, I’m comfortable in that arena.”
