Colorado Republican primary voters will decide Tuesday night what sort of gubernatorial candidate they want leading the ticket in November, as the party seeks to regain a toehold of power in the Democrat-dominated state.
The options represent different factions of the beleaguered Colorado GOP: religious nonprofit leader and political newcomer Victor Marx; state senator and veteran Republican leader Barb Kirkmeyer; and state representative and right-wing pastor Scott Bottoms.
This story will be updated with initial results after polls close in Colorado’s primary elections at 7 p.m.
Whoever emerges with the GOP nomination will face long odds in November. Colorado has not elected a Republican to the governor’s mansion in 24 years, and the state has become only more electorally inhospitable to the GOP in the years since.
In the Democratic race, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is facing Attorney General Phil Weiser for pole position to succeed Gov. Jared Polis, who is term-limited.
The Republican winner will also have to try to unite a fractured and weakened Colorado GOP. The party has had four elected chairs since the last gubernatorial election four years ago, during which time organizing and fundraising has significantly atrophied.
The assumed GOP front-runner when she entered the race last year, Kirkmeyer ran a campaign focused on her experience and fiscal conservatism, drawing institutional Republican support if not an outpouring of energy from the party’s grassroots — and more conservative — voters.
But she has found herself working to keep up with Marx, who emerged from the right-wing podcast circuit and religious nonprofit space to become a serious contender for the GOP nomination. Despite an extensive and well-scrutinized personal history that has prompted deep skepticism from institutional GOP figures, Marx has raised $3 million, while trying to harness support from voters turned off by longstanding politicians.
He has largely occupied the ideological lane that Bottoms may have otherwise pursued. Perhaps the most conservative lawmaker in the state Capitol, the evangelical pastor won top billing at the state GOP assembly, beating Marx. He has been deeply critical of Democratic leadership in the state, including by alleging — without providing any evidence — that his fellow lawmakers are running pedophile rings in the legislature.
While the GOP candidates generally represent their own, often-warring factions within the party, any Republican hoping to mount a serious challenge in November will have to pull together both conservatives and a significant share of the unaffiliated voters who make up a majority of Colorado’s voter base — and who tend to vote Democratic.
