Go to: Candidate Q&A home page · Denver Post Voter Guide
Alexis Hoffkling Democrat
Residence: Wheat Ridge
Profession: Family Doctor
Education: Medical Doctor (UC San Fransisco)
Experience: I have spent my career providing safety-net primary care to kids and adults, and applying heart and science to help improve human lives.
What are your top three priorities, if elected?
1) Protecting democracy – safeguarding our excellent elections in Colorado, and updating our laws to properly protect against corruption and undue influence from billionaires and giant corporations.
2) Putting people back at the center of public policy – Thriving human lives, not corporate dividends, should be our bottom line. This means putting patient care over profits in healthcare, and putting checks on the exploitative tendencies of multibillion-dollar tech and pharma corporations.
3) Building for the long term. If we are serious about handing off a livable world to our children and grandchildren, we have to start budgeting like we mean it. That starts with properly investing in in the health and education of today’s kids.
What specific actions would you support to improve affordability for Coloradans, whether aimed at housing costs, tax burdens or other impacts?
– Implement the Graduated Income Tax, which both lowers costs directly for 97% of Coloradans, and makes our state less reliant on fees, which will also lower costs for most Coloradans.
– Advance workers’ rights to unionize, which will improve wages and purchasing power.
– Increase accountability for corporate profiteering and price-gouging.
Whether your party is in the majority or minority next year, where do you see actionable common ground with the opposing party?
Protecting our kids from amoral tech companies
Preserving the viability of rural hospitals and clinics.
Increasing funding for schools
A new governor will take office next year. What opportunities are there for legislation or other changes that did not gain traction under Gov. Jared Polis?
Workers’ rights
Social Media company guardrails
Stronger protections against anticompetitive pricing practices in many sectors (healthcare, housing, retail pricing)
Ross Metler Libertarian Party
Residence: Wheat Ridge
Profession: Software Developer
Education: BA Chemistry
Experience: 7 year data analysis in market research; 3 years chair, JeffCo LP; 1 year Legislative Directory LPCO
What are your top three priorities, if elected?
Cost of living and housing: Colorado is over-regulated making it expensive to build. Government transparency and accountability: our legislature continuously skirts TABOR and attempts to trick Coloradans into giving it up.
Stewardship for what we have: better land management and reduction of forest fires, Defend the Guard to keep our national guard here when we need them.
What specific actions would you support to improve affordability for Coloradans, whether aimed at housing costs, tax burdens or other impacts?
Housing: cut the permitting delays, parking minimums, and ADU restrictions that block supply. A homeowner should be able to add a rental unit above the garage without fighting City Hall. Energy: Xcel’s rates have risen eight times since 2023, up 22 percent. I’d push the PUC for real scrutiny of rate cases, including who pays for data center power demand. Taxes and fees: enforce a simple rule. If a fee is sold as funding roads, it funds roads, not an “enterprise” created to dodge a TABOR vote. Property tax bills should explain plainly what drove any increase.
Whether your party is in the majority or minority next year, where do you see actionable common ground with the opposing party?
Civil asset forfeiture reform is the clearest example: HB26-1250 passed 64-1 in the House and 32-2 in the Senate this year, and Governor Polis signed it in June. That’s not a party-line outcome. Dedicated transportation funding is another: nobody, regardless of party, likes paying registration fees and gas taxes only to watch potholes go unfixed. And a bipartisan bill (SB26-070) on license-plate-reader oversight cleared committee 5-2 this year before stalling ahead of a floor vote — unfinished business worth finishing. Good government checks the fine print, not the party label.
A new governor will take office next year. What opportunities are there for legislation or other changes that did not gain traction under Gov. Jared Polis?
The clearest example is SB26-070, a bipartisan license-plate-reader oversight bill that passed committee 5-2, then died without a floor vote after a veto threat from Governor Polis. Whoever’s elected should let it stand or fall on an actual vote, since surveillance overreach worries voters in every party. Second: TABOR “enterprise” workarounds that raise revenue without asking voters. The attorney general who negotiated this year’s Initiative 175/HB26-1430 transportation deal, Phil Weiser, is now running for governor. Voters should hold him, or whoever wins, to that deal’s actual terms.
