Victor Marx, the Republican Party’s nominee for Colorado governor, said last week in a Facebook post that he will only debate Phil Weiser one time before the November election, and, he wrote in the lengthy post, the debate has to be entirely on terms he dictates and in a format he approves.
We have to hand it to Marx: setting completely unrealistic parameters for your only debate is a logistically clever way to hide from your opponent without looking like a complete coward. Marx’s refusal to debate won’t hurt Phil Weiser, who easily defeated U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet to become the Democratic nominee in a state that we think will likely trend left in backlash to President Donald Trump’s disastrous second term in office. Rather, voters in Colorado deserve to hear the candidates for governor answer tough questions, including Weiser and Marx.
Debates are a time-honored tradition in Colorado, and they historically have begun with the Club 20 debate in Grand Junction where Western Slope voters get the first crack at asking candidates about the policy issues that affect them most: water policy, the oil and gas industry, agriculture, wolf reintroduction and infrastructure investment.
Marx refused to go to the Club 20 debate, which is moderated by members of the Western Colorado group, a conservative-leaning coalition of business leaders, local governments and tribes from 22 counties. Marx isn’t the first candidate to snub Club 20, but mostly Democratic candidates skip the debate hoping to avoid elaborating their positions on thorny issues like wolves and hydraulic fracturing. When Gov. Jared Polis refused to attend the debate in 2018, we called it cowardly.
Weiser will be at the Club 20 debate on Sept. 19 at Asteria Theatre in Grand Junction.
“I’ve shown up to the Club 20 debate every time I’ve run for elected office,” Weiser wrote in a statement about the debate. “The challenges facing rural Colorado and the Western Slope are serious, and it’s critically important that our next governor listens to every community. As governor, I’ll always show up for Western Colorado.”
Marx posted on Facebook that he would only debate Weiser one time, and that the debate must be “a substantive, extended, candidate-to-candidate conversation without a moderator controlling the questions, topics, or direction of the discussion.” This offer to debate but only on his terms is a charade.
Such a debate would not be “substantive,” but would rather result in the candidates loudly talking over each other, repeating their talking points and exchanging barbs and insults. While that would be entertaining for a minute or two, it most certainly would not help inform voters. We aren’t sure what reputable neutral organization would even offer to host such an event.
Moderators serve a vital function in debates. No matter the format — town hall style events with the public asking questions of a single candidate or a panel event with multiple candidates fielding questions prepared ahead of time — moderators keep candidates on task, demand they answer tough questions and prevent any one candidate from filibustering. Moderators also play the important role of fact-checking candidates in real time.
Weiser has already agreed to debates with moderators in Colorado Springs with KOAA, and in Denver with 9News, and Weiser is working on setting up a debate co-hosted by The Denver Post and Denver7.
Weiser has been in political office and the public spotlight for eight years as attorney general. Marx is a political newcomer — a huge part of his appeal to his supporters — which means he has never taken stands on complex policies before. For example, Weiser is on the record as being willing to make pro-union adjustments to the Labor Peace Act. Colorado’s outgoing governor, Jared Polis, recently vetoed legislation that would have done just that. Marx has never taken a position on this legislation that we have seen.
Marx’s campaign is also whitewashing him as a candidate. Someone visiting his Facebook page would have to scroll for a very long time to get past his campaign’s recent polished posts about Colorado’s budget, public safety, and other domestic issues to find a March 15, 2026, repost simply saying: “I remember this.”
The video he shares was posted in 2018 but taken in 2016 when Marx was in Sinjar, Iraq, doing what his nonprofit predominantly does – delivering lamb and lion stuffed animals to women and children. The stuffed animals have a recorded prayer in a device that is played when a button is pushed.
“I don’t know why I’m whispering,” Marx whispers into the shaky camera he holds before speaking up. “Cause they can’t hear me. ISIS is right over there.” Marx points across a vast desert. “We need airstrikes. I could be a forward controller. I could call in airstrikes; just give me a laser … bomb that position right there. Boom! Bring them the good news, which is the Bible, and if they don’t go for that, bombs, bullets to stop the evil.”
Marx says his organization has "rescued 45,000 women and children." But he has recently clarified during several interviews that what he means to say is that his organization has helped thousands of women and children spiritually with stuffed animals and prayers.
Marx has certainly done some rescue missions, but it's unclear how many. One of his first campaign videos in 2025 included a clip of him in Iraq riding in a car with a very small girl he said had no name or family and had recently been rescued from rubble in Mosul.
Marx has taken hard questions from journalists about his nonprofit, which raises about $7 million a year on pledges to rescue women and children from sex trafficking. Still, we know many hard questions remain to be asked of a man who wants to lead the state.
If we took Marx at his word on social media, a voter would assume that he, like his close personal friend Charlie Kirk, was the victim of an assassination attempt. , that "A gunman tried to kill me 3 months before I took this photo with Charlie." But Marx is actually talking about a family dispute that is captured in police records and a 911 call. Marx's brother-in-law was living in a trailer on his property in Colorado Springs. In a conversation recorded by the dispatcher, Marx says his brother-in-law was shooting out of the trailer and had not responded to his efforts to contact him by phone.
"I think we are going to need a unit out here to help us to get him to come out," Marx told the dispatcher.
We have questions about that event as well that we would like Marx to address publicly.
But more than fact-checking a candidate's past, voters need to know where Marx stands on policy issues.
Anyone can say they will make Colorado safer and more affordable, but voters deserve to know exactly what Marx intends to do when he is in the governor's office.
Colorado voters benefit from the vetting of candidates that happens in debates. There is ample time and opportunity in the coming months for Marx to get on the stage with Weiser and take tough questions.
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