Editor’s note: The Denver Post published stories looking at how both major-party candidates for Colorado governor would approach the job. Read the story about Republican Victor Marx here.
Attorney General Phil Weiser is heading into the final weeks of an unusual Colorado gubernatorial campaign that, in the absence of rigorous debates and a conventional Republican opponent, has bred a consensus among many observers that he’s all but won the race.
But the muted campaign has left key questions hanging in the air about what kind of Democratic governor he would be, should he win the Nov. 3 election — and how his approach would differ from outgoing Gov. Jared Polis.
Would Weiser be beholden to the most progressive wing of his party, or would he serve as a moderate bulwark against it? Would he embrace new taxes and regulations, or would a teetering national and state economy stay his hand? Would he enter office seeing the legislature as a body to be corralled and controlled, or would he view lawmakers as willing partners for a mostly shared agenda?
And right out of the gate, how much would the state’s projected $1.6 billion budget deficit for the coming fiscal year — its latest $1 billion-plus shortfall — hamstring his plans to put his mark on Colorado?
A Gov. Weiser would almost certainly enter office with deep-blue legislative majorities sharing the Capitol. He’d face a lawmaking branch that’s grown used to fighting with Polis, a fellow Democrat and frequent foil to his own party, to push its priorities. Amid those dynamics, he’d also oversee a state with an ongoing housing affordability crisis and perennial concerns about public safety, education and transportation.
In an interview, Weiser points to his eight years as attorney general to give Coloradans “clear guidance and a clear vision” about what he’d bring to the state’s most powerful office. He’s made listening tours a signature part of his campaign and promises not to be boxed in by traditional thinking when tackling some of the state’s biggest challenges.
“First and foremost, I’m committed to showing up all across our state, making sure everyone knows they matter and they’re listened to,” Weiser said. “And second, my commitment is to be a collaborative and creative problem solver. Whether it was on the opioid crisis, public safety, water or youth mental health, I took on hard fights — important fights — with communities. And I got results.”
In the attorney general’s office, he established a statewide distribution system for nearly $1 billion in settlement funds from companies found liable for inflaming the country’s opioid addiction crisis. He sued corporate landlords over predatory practices. He against Meta, where the state attorneys general recently announced a historic settlement that will require the social media giant to limit children’s access to the platforms and ban features deemed harmful, such as likes and beauty filters.
Those are a handful of examples Weiser cites as he says he’ll push the governor’s office to do more, serve the entire state and be a “collaborative and creative problem solver” if he defeats Republican Victor Marx and the rest of the field to take the state’s helm.
To win the party’s nomination for governor in June, Weiser rode a wave of voter discontent with other longtime Democrats, buoyed by personal-touch politics that stuck with many primary voters. He also touted his aggressive stance toward the Trump administration, with Colorado filing or joining dozens of lawsuits since early 2025 — . He swept aside U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who was once seen as a prohibitive favorite, by nearly 14 percentage points.
His resume prior to that includes stints in the Clinton and Obama administrations, clerking for U.S. Supreme Court justices and serving as dean of the University of Colorado Law School. He founded Silicon Flatirons, a tech hub in Boulder, while a law school faculty member.
Since securing the nomination, Weiser has already racked up wins for the next governor. In late August, with the election still more than two months away, Weiser was credited with helping to negotiate a peace between the legislature and backers of a ballot measure that would have required more transportation funding at the expense of other parts of the state budget.
But if Weiser wins the governor’s office, his leadership style will nonetheless be tested. He’ll need to lead on policy and style, negotiate with Democratic majorities itching for policies rejected by Polis, and straddle the line on how to be the chief executive while the legislature makes all-important decisions about spending.
“An AG picks his fights,” Kyle Saunders, a Colorado State University political science professor, said. “A governor gets every problem at once, with no money, and most of the hard calls are telling his own side no.”
Possible shifts from Polis — if budget allows
Money may be a limiting factor for how Weiser would launch his ColoradoCorps program, for example. A centerpiece of his campaign, it would be an AmeriCorps-style program connecting young Coloradans with skills for must-have professions like health care, education, firefighting and law enforcement.
Weiser has also started to detail his plans to add 40,000 more affordable homes in the state, and he’s stated a healthcare goal of “primary care for all,” where people can more easily access care aimed at prevention, instead of waiting for treatment when they become sick. But achieving both, and on what timeline, could depend on whether there’s any state money to leverage toward those goals.
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When voters pick the next governor, they’ll also be deciding a pair of tax measures on the ballot that will help dictate the state’s future. Amendment 87 would shift the state's flat income tax to a graduated tax, raising rates on the wealthiest Coloradans and boosting tax revenue significantly. And Proposition NN would allow the state to keep money collected over the constitutional cap on government revenue growth and use it to increase education funding.
Depending on those outcomes, Weiser has said a top priority would be a statewide listening tour to build support for some kind of reform to the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.
"One question we're going to have to see is how much money we have, (and) where and when,” Weiser said. “So how we scale (ColoradoCorps) up is yet to be determined.”
Philanthropy, working with employers and leaning on the “power of convening” inherent in the governor's office may provide some pathways, he said, adding that “Colorado has been a scrappy, entrepreneurial state before.”
State Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat and one of the chamber’s most progressive members, said he expected a Weiser administration would be “at least as hands-on as the Polis administration” when it comes to steering legislation. But with a key difference: A Weiser administration would be “a lot less antagonistic” than his predecessor, said Mabrey, who endorsed Weiser during the primary.
Polis, especially in recent years, broke severely with his party on a number of issues, particularly ones where he saw lawmakers acting against business interests or pushing for income redistribution.
Several bills that Polis torpedoed or vetoed were ones that Weiser had worked with lawmakers on, Mabrey said, setting up potential early legislative victories. Those include his hopes that Weiser will sign versions of a twice-vetoed bill that would eliminate Colorado's unique two-vote rule for unions to collect dues, a bill prohibiting companies from charging people different prices based on personal characteristics, and a ban on landlords using algorithms to raise rents.
"I think that there's some obvious paths forward,” Mabrey said. “At the end of the day, our economy -- and this is a national problem, but true in Colorado as well -- is broken for working-class people."
Conversely, House Minority Leader Jarvis Caldwell, a Colorado Springs Republican, credited Polis with serving as a check on what he called the legislature’s least business-friendly impulses. With a tumultuous economic climate now and likely in the future, he mused about whether Weiser would do the same.
"Because it's his own party in power in the legislature, it's much harder to (serve as a check),” Caldwell said. “But I believe, if there is a Gov. Weiser, he is going to have to make those hard decisions and put a check on the legislature, because the legislature has moved very far to the left over the last 10 years.”
But the budget hole may ultimately serve as the biggest guide and limit on the next governor, Caldwell said, regardless of who wins. After two years of steep cuts in services, Caldwell said the state would need to dig even deeper, and make even tougher decisions, to balance the budget.
Weiser, for his part, said the budget crisis would help create a sense of urgency to solve some of the state’s biggest problems.
Navigating big challenges and politics
Weiser also said he wanted to refocus some of the conversation away from how the state's departments and agencies think about spending and toward consideration for the needs of Coloradans who benefit the most.
In the example of Medicaid -- the biggest driver of the state's budget deficit -- that means listening to families who need care and the healthcare providers who need to make ends meet based on state spending decisions. The state is projected to overspend on Medicaid by $443 million this fiscal year, which ends in June, if the legislature does not make quick cuts in the winter.
“We're going to have to be really creative, really work together to find the best way through,” Weiser said. “I'll just say I believe in the people of Colorado. I believe we have the right type of leadership. We're going to be able to find solutions."
As for his own agenda, he added: "Some of the programs that I have in mind are going to take longer to do. Others I'm going to be able to do sooner."
Senate President James Coleman, a Denver Democrat, said he expects the deficit to be Issue No. 1 for the Weiser administration. He also hopes for a more collaborative relationship with the governor’s office than the legislature has had in recent years.
As Weiser mulls his approach to appointing a cabinet, he's considered empowering some departments to do more. For example, he wants the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to take a more active role in monitoring and enforcing air and water quality standards. His plan characterizes that as filling the gap left by the federal government on environmental protections, but he also describes it as a way to build up trust in government.
He cited in southwest Colorado as an example. In 2024, Enterprise Products found a ruptured pipeline, initially estimating that about 23,000 gallons had spilled from it as the pipeline crossed the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in La Plata County. The tribal government went on to commission an independent study that found nearly 10 times that amount had seeped into the ground.
That study shouldn’t have fallen on the tribes, Weiser said, but should have been undertaken by CDPHE.
Byzantine, unenforced environmental rules allow bad actors to skirt the law, Weiser said, while miring responsible companies in red tape. He called for smarter, clearer regulations and enforcement to go with it.
"If people don’t trust that CDPHE is enforcing protections, then it's a problem for our state,” Weiser said.
As for the type of Democrat Weiser would be as governor, Mabrey, the House progressive, said he found labels like moderate and progressive less useful when describing Weiser. Many of the bills they worked on while Weiser was attorney general were broadly popular with legislative Democrats who self-identify across the party’s ideological spectrum, and were doomed only by Polis and his iconoclastic libertarian streak.
Weiser likewise avoided any labels that would pigeonhole him into one Democratic faction or another.
“There’s a range of issues out there. I take each one as each one,” Weiser said. “... My commitment is, I want to hear from you: Whatap your concerns? I want to bring people together to solve problems. I believe thatap what Colorado’s about. So call me a Colorado Democrat.”
Staff writer Seth Klamann contributed to this story.
