Michael Bennet, now Colorado’s longest-serving senator in 50 years, is eyeing a full-time return to the state in his bid to become its next governor.

His appeal against Attorney General Phil Weiser in the June 30 Democratic primary is based on senatorial deftness and long experience in public office. His record includes winning a key provision in the 2021 American Rescue Plan to expand the federal child tax credit — a move heralded by the Brookings Institution as leading to a “” across the country before the provision expired after about six months.

When then-Gov. Bill Ritter appointed Bennet to fill a Senate vacancy in 2009, he was new to elected office — but he wasn’t new to public life. He’d served as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools and as then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff, after a stint working on corporate mergers for billionaire Phil Anschutz.

Bennet, 61, entered the governor’s race in April 2025, and his decision to run was , since U.S. senators hold one of the most influential political posts in the country.

He said at his announcement event that he saw an opportunity in Colorado to “forge a better politics” than what����ap practiced in Washington, D.C. He pledged to build an economic and educational foundation to “drive a stake through Trumpism.”

“We have people all over Colorado that are working in their communities, and at the county level, who are desperate to have a partner in the statehouse, who believe that what we have to do in this state is unify the citizens of Colorado,” Bennet said, listing off priorities like cutting the costs of housing and childcare and raising education levels. “… This is not a moment for rhetoric, it’s a moment for results.”

With so many other Democrats seemingly waiting in the wings, Bennet’s entrance into the race after Weiser threw the political world for a loop — and kept the field from growing.

“I was surprised, just because it seemed like it was outside the realm of what he was thinking about,” said U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Lakewood Democrat who’s endorsed Bennet, in an interview last fall. But like other backers, she quickly understood the move after a conversation with him.

“When you talk to him, it becomes clear that he felt like this was where he could make the biggest impact, and that’s what we all strive for in public service,” Pettersen added. “… While I was surprised, I understand that his breadth of experience — from superintendent to the Senate — and (with) the opportunities he has in Colorado, I understand why he wants to do this.”

‘We have to unify Colorado’

Bennet quickly lined up major endorsements from across the state. The rollout was a show of force for the campaign, drawing on Bennet’s long history of winning statewide campaigns and his reputation among Democratic leaders.

During the campaign, he’s taken some swipes at outgoing Gov. Jared Polis, a fellow Democrat. That included during a May debate co-sponsored by The Denver Post, when he took exception to Weiser citing his experience in state government.

“I don’t think the state government has done very much to solve our housing crisis, to solve our childcare crisis, to solve our healthcare crisis, to solve the fact that for the first time in a generation, businesses are moving out of our state because they can’t succeed as well in Colorado,” Bennet said.

Bennet, who grew up in Washington, D.C., earned a law degree from Yale Law School and spent much of his early legal career on the East Coast. Before he entered Colorado’s political sphere, he worked for Anschutz, buying up and restructuring distressed businesses, including oil companies and movie theater companies, earning millions of dollars in the process.��

A quick look at the Colorado governor candidates running in this month’s Democratic, Republican primaries

He served in Hickenlooper's mayoral administration beginning in 2003, then was appointed superintendent of DPS in 2005. In that role, he declining enrollment and a stark achievement gap between students of color and white students. He also made the decision to close a storied northeast Denver high school that had struggled in the decade prior.

Since his appointment to the Senate, Bennet has won new terms by increasingly large margins. In 2022, he won nearly 56% of the vote, routing his Republican rival by nearly 15 percentage points.

Bennet ran for president in 2020, though he dropped out of the race early in the Democratic primaries.

He has repeatedly pointed to education and support for children of all economic stripes as key motivations for his public service. That streak continues with his gubernatorial bid.

By last fall, three of his four major policy proposals so far had circled education and childcare. He also has keyed in on housing affordability, aiming to help families dig roots in the Centennial State and help their kids find their own Colorado dream.

“Whether you think you’re the most conservative person in Colorado, or the most liberal or progressive person in Colorado, if our kids can’t afford to live here, it doesn’t matter,” Bennet said in an interview last year. “... We have to unify Colorado -- build a coalition across our state to do hard things -- and I think I’ve got the experience and the leadership skills to be able to help us.”

Former Colorado House Majority Leader Daneya Esgar said that breadth of experience -- and focus on children -- helped bring her into Bennet's camp early in the race.��

“When I look at Michael’s career, he has a history of governing. He’s been a senator, he’s had to really think about policy issues, he’s had to make important decisions when it comes to votes,” Esgar said. “... I think what I’ve always appreciated about Michael is the work he’s really done and the vision he has for Colorado’s kids, throughout his entire career.”

Questions about Senate seat

But Bennet's senatorial experience has also been an avenue of attack.

The question of why he's leaving one of the most powerful political positions in the country to run for office closer to home has followed him on the campaign trail, no matter how many times he says why.

Former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, a Democrat who represented Colorado from 1987 to 1993, said he told Bennet he wished he'd stay in the Senate, where he was elected to serve, and that he was "surprised and disappointed" he would end his term early.

"If I were in the Senate, I'd be as visible as possible fighting Trump," said Wirth, a Weiser supporter. "I've told both Michael and (now-Sen.) John Hickenlooper that I wish they were both a lot more aggressive than they've been. They've got effectively safe seats, and they ought to be outspoken."

Bennet has contended with blowback for controversial votes to approve some of President Donald Trump's cabinet nominees last year. During the May debate, Bennet said he regretted voting for Energy Secretary Chris Wright but defended voting for Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins because the state needed support on wildfires.

Bennet has also raised eyebrows with his pronouncement that, should he win the governorship, he'd time his resignation so he could appoint his own successor to the U.S. Capitol.

He's stuck to that plan, while saying he doesn't have a replacement shortlist and won't commit to identifying possible candidates to voters. He's said only that he would appoint someone who's younger than 50 years old.

Staff writer Seth Klamann contributed to this story.

On the Democratic side, longtime officeholders U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser are duking it out for their party’s nomination. On the Republican side, state Rep. Scott Bottoms, state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer and Victor Marx are looking to recapture the governor’s mansion for the GOP for the first time in more than 20 years.

Here’s an at-a-glance look at the major party candidates in the June 30 primaries who are looking to lead Colorado for the next four years. They are listed in the order they’ll appear on each ballot. The winners will face off in the November election, where voters will decide who will succeed term-limited Gov. Jared Polis.

Republicans

Scott Bottoms |

A longtime lead pastor of a church in Colorado Springs, in the state House, and he earned top billing on the Republican primary ballot after securing the most votes at the party’s statewide assembly in April.

He’s among the most conservative lawmakers in the state Capitol. His four years in office have been focused on pursuing antiabortion and anti-transgender policies, alongside attempts to lower the income tax. With the exception of legislation to create a new license plate, none of Bottoms’ bills has been signed into law or passed a first hearing vote.

Bottoms is a U.S. Navy veteran who has promised to ferret out corruption and “DOGE” state government — a reference to Elon Musk’s agency-gutting Department of Government Efficiency at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Victor Marx |

Marx is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and nonprofit leader. A political newcomer from Colorado Springs, Marx’s eclectic background includes claims to be the world’s fastest gun-disarmer, a mixed martial artist, a podcaster, an author and a “high-risk humanitarian” working to help women and children in conflict areas.

He has said he was physically abused beginning at an early age and that his stepfather forced him to murder a man when Marx was 7. He joined the military, ran mixed martial arts schools in Hawaii and later founded his nonprofit, All Things Possible Ministries.

Marx has significantly outraised his GOP opponents, avoiding debates and focusing instead on traditional conservative media and direct outreach to contact voters.

Barb Kirkmeyer |

Kirkmeyer, a longtime Weld County resident, served as a county commissioner between 1992 and 2000 and then between 2009 and 2020. In between, she served in Gov. Bill Owens’ administration as the acting executive director of the Department of Local Affairs. In 2020, she was elected to the state Senate.

She later joined the powerful Joint Budget Committee, a six-member group of lawmakers that drafts the state budget each year. In 2022, she unsuccessfully ran for the newly created 8th Congressional District, losing a narrow race to Democrat Yadira Caraveo.

Kirkmeyer is a representative of the GOP’s more traditional wing and is respected in a Democrat-dominated Capitol. She has been a frequent critic of Democrats’ spending and policy priorities, while holding at arm’s length the more right-wing elements of her own party.

Write-in candidate

The Republican primary ballot has a write-in option for governor, since candidate Kelvin “K-Man” Wimberly — part of the initially large GOP field last fall — filed a write-in candidate affidavit.

Democrats

Phil Weiser |

Weiser first won public office as part of the 2018 blue wave that landed Democrats in all of Colorado’s top offices. Before his election, Weiser served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and as the dean of the University of Colorado Law School.

His tenure as AG has included landmark consumer protection lawsuits, ongoing negotiations about the future of the Colorado River and an antagonistic stance toward the Trump administration, particularly in the president’s second term.

Weiser was the first Democrat to announce his candidacy for the governor’s office in what was expected to be a crowded field. Now, he’s just one of two candidates remaining.��He has pivoted his campaign to one of an upstart as he tries to overcome Bennet’s decades in the public eye. He argues Colorado is best served by its senior senator remaining in Washington, D.C.

Michael Bennet |

Bennet entered public office in 2009 with an appointment by then-Gov. Bill Ritter to fill a Senate vacancy. He wasn’t new to public life, having served as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools and as then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff, after a stint working on corporate mergers for Phil Anschutz. But he was new to elected office.

He won his first election in 2010 in a relative nail-biter, winning 48% of the vote to Republican Ken Buck’s 46%. His vote share has increased in both reelection campaigns since then, most recently with a 56%-to-41% romp of Republican businessman Joe O’Dea in 2022. Bennet ran for president in 2020, though he dropped out of the race early in the Democratic primaries.

He has made cost of living a central theme in his gubernatorial campaign and calls Trump’s presidency a symptom of that larger economic problem. One of Bennet’s marquee accomplishments as a senator was expanding the child tax credit and sending it out as direct checks to families. That expanded credit lasted only a year, but it helped cut childhood poverty by nearly half nationwide, .

Other candidates

Besides the major parties, the Unity Party of Colorado for governor on its June 30 primary ballot: Paul Noël Fiorino and Jeff Peckman.

Other third parties have nominated candidates for the November election. Unaffiliated candidates who are gathering signatures to make the fall ballot include Greg Lopez, who served a short stint in Congress in 2024 and earlier dropped out of the Republican race for governor.

Unfortunately, by cheerleading more taxpayer-funded industrial logging than we’ve seen for nearly a century in Colorado, they’re projecting their own mistakes on those with whom they disagree.

Indeed, with wildfire prevention measures, we have yet another example of when story and status compete against science and substance.

Industry and government, funded by your tax dollars to log forests in the name of wildfire prevention, are using status (former governors) to push a story (logging saves homes and lives) to dismiss the science (evidence that logging is ineffective or counterproductive at protecting communities) and ignore substance (“hardening” every home in Colorado).

Last month, many of the elected officials, agencies, and nonprofits exploited their status to pressure our state legislature to axe a bill that would’ve directed some “wildfire mitigation” funding towards what the consensus of peer-reviewed science agrees is the most effective action for protecting communities: home hardening.

Instead of mentioning this, Owens and Ritter opined, “Every year we delay needed work, we increase the odds that the next fire will burn hotter, spread faster and do more damage.”

In this case — likely due to being misled by those who benefit most — these high-status players are making claims that don’t meet the burden of proof.

The best argument for “fuel reduction” is that it can sometimes, somewhat reduce the severity of lower-intensity fires already easily contained by firefighters, the very fires agencies insist we must return to the landscape, not the (ecologically crucial) weather and wind-driven higher-intensity ones. Even if you ignore harm to ecosystems, wildlife, watersheds, and climate, that����ap not much bang for the cost of thousands of bucks per acre.

Not only is cutting forests ineffective at preventing the spread of fire, but that����ap not even its purpose. As this Forest Service study endorsing “fuel reduction” admits: “fuel treatments are not designed to prevent or stop fires but to moderate fire behavior. However, there is a frequent misconception that fuel treatments should facilitate suppression and limit the size of wildfires.”

To the contrary, abundant science — including the same Forest Service study — reveals that: “Reduced canopy bulk density can lead to increased surface wind speed and fuel heating, which allows for increased rates of fire spread in thinned forests.”

We now have proof that some of those promoting story are abusing status to not only “cherry pick” science but falsely accuse anyone sharing left-out evidence of being “cherry pickers” themselves.

Colorado Forest Restoration Institute at Colorado State University is the state’s leading entity researching “fuel reduction” in the name of wildfire.

In a 2024 email exchange obtained through a Colorado Open Records Act filing, CFRI’s director told a U.S. Forest Service district ranger (overseeing the second largest logging project in Colorado history) that “I’m concerned the Wildfire Crisis Strategy overpromises what forest density redx (reduction) can actually accomplish vis-à-vis the lofty objective of saving homes and communities from catching fire. What additional density redx could have reduced the impacts of the Marshall Fire?”

CFRI’s director advised, “There are numerous studies demonstrating both effectiveness and lack of effectiveness of forest density reduction (“forest thinning”) projects on altering fire behavior and effects. Engaging in toe-to-toe trench warfare with competing science papers would result in stalemate – and win for the opponents.”

Yet still to this day in Colorado, anyone who questions logging is at best censored, at worst publicly defamed as a liar.

Owens and Ritter are right when they say, “Every year we refuse to confront reality, we make future losses more likely and more expensive.”

But the only way we’re going to snap out of the delusion and protect homes and lives from wildfire is by valuing science and substance over story and status.

Josh Schlossberg lives adjacent to the Roosevelt National Forest in Boulder County and works as Colorado Advocate for Eco-Integrity Alliance.

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Those experiences stay with you. They also teach a simple lesson: when it comes to wildfire, denial, delay and ideology come at a very high cost.

That is why wildfire awareness matters. May is not just a marker on the calendar. It is the beginning of wildfire season. It is a warning. In Colorado, this is the moment to prepare for the dangerous months ahead and to be honest about what real prevention requires — proactive forest treatment prevents the worst.

Wildfire is not only a forest issue. It is a public safety issue. It is a health issue. It is an economic issue. Lives are put at risk. Homes, businesses and ranches are destroyed. Watersheds are damaged. Entire communities are left to recover for years. Even far from the flames, smoke can turn the air hazardous, especially for children, seniors and those with respiratory conditions.

Colorado has learned these lessons the hard way. We know wildfire cannot be eliminated. But we also know the severity of these disasters is not simply something we are powerless to address. There are practical, science-based steps we can take to reduce risk. The problem is that for too long, too many people have treated active forest management as too invasive rather than absolutely necessary.

That needs to change.

We should say clearly what too often goes unsaid: healthy forests do not maintain themselves, and neglected forests do not become safer with wishful thinking. In many high-risk areas, doing nothing is not conservation. It is complacency and it is dangerous.

For years, there have been loud voices opposing the very tools that can help reduce catastrophic wildfire risk — strategic thinning, fuel reduction, forest clearing where appropriate, and prescribed burns when conditions allow. Too often, these arguments are dressed up as environmental virtue. In reality, blocking responsible management can leave forests less healthy, communities more vulnerable and firefighters facing even greater danger.

Colorado needs a more mature conversation, especially as we deal with prolonged drought, warming temperatures, pine and Ponderosa beetles, and other threats to forest health. Stewardship is not abuse. Forest management is not the enemy of healthy ecosystems. If anything, refusing to use proven tools in fire-prone landscapes is its own kind of recklessness.

We should be working closely with the United States Forest Service and the Colorado State Forest Service and local governments to accelerate projects in areas already designated as high wildfire threat. We should prioritize the places where fire risk, community exposure and forest conditions demand action most urgently. We should support mechanical thinning, hazardous-fuel removal, and controlled burns when science and on-the-ground expertise indicate they make sense.

And yes, when and where appropriate, responsible access and carefully managed resource activity can be part of healthier forests and stronger rural economies. That should not be controversial. It should be common sense.

None of this means every acre should be treated the same way. It means decisions should be driven by science, local knowledge and public safety — not by rigid ideology or pressure from groups more interested in stopping management than solving problems.

Colorado’s forests protect water supplies, support wildlife, provide recreation, sustain local economies and define the character of our state. If we want those public benefits to endure for generations to come, we have to be willing to manage these lands responsibly.

The costs of inaction are simply too high. Every year we delay needed work, we increase the odds that the next fire will burn hotter, spread faster and do more damage. Every year we refuse to confront reality, we make future losses more likely and more expensive.

Coloradans deserve better than another season of hand-wringing followed by disaster. They deserve leaders willing to act before the emergency, not just speak solemnly after it.

We have both seen wildfire from the seat of state leadership. We know the fear, the destruction and the heartbreak it leaves behind. We also know Colorado has the expertise and the tools to do better.

Learn to Live Wildfire Friendly with less ideology, more science; less obstruction, more stewardship; less talk, more action.

Because when wildfire threatens Colorado, doing what works is not optional. It is our responsibility.

Gov. Bill Owens is a Republican who served from 1999 to 2007. Gov. Bill Ritter is a Democrat who served from 2007 to 2011.

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The debate over accountability for public officials has sharpened nationally as Gov. Jared Polis has questioned whether justice was evenly applied when comparing the length of the sentence imposed on former Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters with the sentence imposed on former Democratic Colorado State Senator Sonya Jacquez Lewis last week.

In a social media post, Polis noted that Jaquez Lewis was convicted of the same exact felony as Peters, but received a much more lenient sentence. The facts differ, as do some of the legal theories, but Polis notes that the scale of Peters’ punishment has placed her sentence outside the typical range involving elected officials, raising legitimate questions about proportionality.

The legitimacy of our justice system depends on the public’s belief that the rules apply evenly, regardless of party, ideology or notoriety. From my vantage point as a former Democratic lawmaker, and a former Denver city attorney and assistant attorney general who worked on criminal enforcement matters, the Peters case is striking not because accountability was inappropriate, but because the sentence appears inconsistent with other cases and may have been influenced by her polarizing political speech.

Polis’s office has made it clear that he is not considering a pardon for Tina Peters, and neither would I. Instead, he is reviewing her application like anyone else for clemency and likely considering a modification to her sentence.

In my time as chief of staff to former Gov. John Hickenlooper, we carefully vetted many clemency cases, and the public is able to weigh in during this process. It is imperative that Peters takes accountability for her actions and is remorseful.

None of this is to excuse Tina Peters’ conduct. Peters was found guilty on seven charges, including four felonies, for her role in orchestrating a municipal election security data breach of the county’s election equipment in 2021, well after the 2020 election results were affirmed by the county and certified by the state. Peters faced 20 years in prison and was sentenced to 9 years.

Make no mistake: courts are right to treat threats to election integrity with gravity, and deterrence is a legitimate sentencing goal. However, legitimate questions were raised on appeal as to whether her political speech, not popular in Colorado, erroneously informed the trial judge’s sentencing of her.

Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Craig Welling, who served as chief legal counsel for Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter before joining the court, grilled the state’s attorney over the trial judge reciting Peters’ false statements about elections in handing down her sentence and said, “the court cannot punish her for her First Amendment rights.”

During oral argument, all three Court of Appeals judges expressed concern about the fairness of her sentence and highlighted how the district court judge’s political statements made about Peters may have unfairly and unconstitutionally influenced her sentencing. The court has not ruled yet in this case and could easily make the conversation about clemency moot.

Proportionality is not a soft concept; it is a cornerstone of justice. A review of similarly situated cases, demonstrates that Peters’ sentence is an outlier.

Lewis, a Democrat, faced serious allegations tied to her official conduct, drawing headlines and political fallout. Lewis was convicted of four felony charges (one count of attempting to influence a public servant and three counts of forgery). In January 2025, during an investigation by the Colorado Senate Committee on Ethics, Lewis forged several letters reportedly written by former aides to refute allegations that Lewis was mistreating staff. She faced up to 15 years in prison, but received two years of supervised probation and 150 hours of community service. I have yet to hear a single person opposed to leniency for Peters argue that Lewis’ sentence was too lenient or inappropriate.

In 2023, former state Rep. Tracey Bennett, a Democrat from Boulder, faced felony charges related to residency fraud and pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant and perjury about lying about her place of residence to run for reelection in a more favorable political district. She faced up to 8 years but received a deferred sentence, including two years of probation. Again, no outcry about whether her sentence was too lenient. Indeed, most public official-related cases don’t end in jail time, but rather probation, deferred sentencing, community hours and fines.

Context matters, and in Colorado’s political climate, Peters is undeniably red meat for many Coloradoans who, like me, are rightfully concerned about election integrity.��Peters became a figure whose actions were not just unlawful but emblematic of broader threats to democratic norms. That political reality does not invalidate the legal process, but it does make the need for visible consistency even more important. Justice must be not only fair, but perceived as fair.

Before critiquing Gov. Polis ask yourself this: would the result have been different if the Peters was the Boulder County Clerk who committed the same crime with the same result? Certainly, the political outcry to Polis’ post about a Democratic elected Boulder County Clerk’s disproportionate sentence would have been more muted.

When similarly situated officials receive vastly different outcomes, it risks creating the impression– whether accurate or not — that punishment can be shaped by the political temperature surrounding a case. And, without question, it is clear that the court itself is openly questioning the severity of her sentence.

In an era when trust in institutions is already strained, that perception carries real consequences.

Doug Friednash is a partner with the law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck.

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Matching Peña’s praise, fellow former Mayor Michael Hancock hailed Bennet����ap chief rival for the job, Attorney General Phil Weiser, as “a tremendous attorney general” and “one of the smartest people I know.”

The compliments, however, highlight what many Democrats see as a good problem to have as the primary race comes into focus: Peña, despite his high praise for Bennet, wants Weiser to win the job. Vice versa for Hancock, who’s really rooting for Bennet.

The two high-wattage candidates have effectively cleared the field of other potential high-profile Democratic candidates in the race to succeed Gov. Jared Polis, who is term-limited from running for a third time. The narrow Democratic field stands in stark contrast to the wide-open Republican contest, where 25 candidates — none of whom had raised more than $200,000 as of this fall — hope to win the Colorado governor’s office for the GOP for the first time in 24 years.

Bennet and Weiser are well-liked in party circles, and each comes with a well-established resume. They’ve likely crowded out any other serious challengers, leaving most Democratic and unaffiliated primary voters with a binary choice between two men who are both Denverites — a potentially simpler exercise than the four-way race in 2018, but it could be complicated by each’s long record for voters to compare.

Weiser, elected as the state’s top attorney in 2018 and now term-limited, has had much of his tenure dominated by legal fights with the Trump administration. He has sued the new administration this year alone. His office has claimed wins in 25 of those cases, losses in seven, and is awaiting rulings in the others.��

Bennet became a U.S. senator in 2009 and is Colorado’s longest-serving senator in 50 years. His record includes winning a key provision in the 2021 American Rescue Plan to expand the federal child tax credit — a move heralded by the Brookings Institution as leading to a “” across the country before the provision expired after about six months.

They’ve each shown fundraising prowess, raising multimillion-dollar war chests in the opening months of the governor’s race.��

All of those factors set the stage for a primary fight with more defined battle lines than the free-for-alls of the past. If no other major candidate enters, voters who cast ballots in the June primary will be asked to weigh senatorial deftness against the value of legal pugnacity in the Trump 2.0 era, Weiser’s comparatively new blood versus Bennet as the old guard — and competing visions that nonetheless broadly align along Democratic priorities.��

“They’re both incredibly smart, thoughtful people whose careers have risen during this weird period of American politics where (President Donald Trump) has become such a dominant figure and such a polarizing figure,” said University of Colorado Denver public affairs professor Paul Teske, who’s donated to each of their campaigns. “… It can lead people to nitpick more than they might otherwise. If you prefer Phil to Michael, you might have to come up with a reason why you prefer him more.”

How this shaped up as a two-man race

Weiser, 57, launched his campaign on Jan. 2 — just before Trump was sworn in for a second term, and before any other prominent Democrats tossed their hats in the ring. Affordability, housing shortages, climate change and the youth mental health crisis dominated his out-of-the-gate message.

With Colorado trending distinctly blue over the past decade, anti-Trump sentiments roiling the liberal base and no incumbent governor seeking reelection this time, it seemed like he’d be the first candidate of many for 2026.

Weiser rode the early entrance to a hefty cash haul and a slate of early endorsements while other possible contenders pondered their moves. The rumored candidates included prominent Democrats U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

But no other high-profile Democrat entered the race — until Bennet, a third of the way into his latest term as a senator, decided he wanted to come home. He publicly announced his campaign in April.

Bennet’s decision is an exceedingly rare one. U.S. senators hold one of the most influential political posts in the country. Over the past 40 years, only 19 sitting or former senators have run for governor anywhere, . Four of those were Democrats. That’s out of some 500 governors’ races over that time frame.

Bennet, 60, said at his announcement event that he saw an opportunity in Colorado to “forge a better politics” than what����ap practiced in Washington, D.C. He pledged to build an economic and educational foundation to “drive a stake through Trumpism.”

“We have people all over Colorado that are working in their communities, and at the county level, who are desperate to have a partner in the statehouse, who believe that what we have to do in this state is unify the citizens of Colorado,” Bennet said, listing off priorities like cutting the costs of housing and child care and raising education levels. “… This is not a moment for rhetoric, it’s a moment for results.”

With so many other Democrats seemingly waiting in the wings, Bennet’s entrance into the race threw the political world for a loop.

“I was surprised, just because it seemed like it was outside the realm of what he was thinking about,” said U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Lakewood Democrat who’s endorsed Bennet. But like other backers, she quickly understood the move after a conversation with him.

“When you talk to him, it becomes clear that he felt like this was where he could make the biggest impact, and that’s what we all strive for in public service,” Pettersen added. “… While I was surprised, I understand that his breadth of experience — from superintendent (of Denver Public Schools) to the Senate — and (with) the opportunities he has in Colorado, I understand why he wants to do this.”

Bennet quickly lined up more than 175 endorsements from across the state, including from nearly all of Colorado’s Democratic members of Congress. (Only U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, who represents Denver, remains uncommitted.) The rollout was a show of force for the campaign, drawing on Bennet’s long history of winning statewide campaigns and his reputation among Democratic leaders.

But it wasn’t a knockout blow. Weiser’s still very much in the race.

Politicos have long joked that AG stands as much for “” as attorney general. For Weiser, himself restricted from running for the same post again and seeing fellow Democrats sitting in U.S. House or Senate seats that he might otherwise consider, the governor’s office was an obvious next move.

At a fall event with Peña and former Gov. Roy Romer that was billed as a fireside chat with “the state’s most transformative leaders,” Weiser said Colorado was at an inflection point. It must both protect its values from “the craziness in Washington,” he said, and forge its own path forward. Reflecting on Romer’s and Peña’s tenures, in which the former leaders fought to build the economic hub that is Denver International Airport, Weiser said he stood ready to take on big challenges.

“There is lower trust in our institutions right now (and) less ability to create solutions to get things done,” Weiser said. “… We have to find a way to meet this moment, create a similar can-do spirit — where we’re going to try a bunch of different things. Not all of it is going to work, but we’re going to try something.”

Weiser’s record as the state’s top attorney quickly swayed Romer, who led Colorado from 1987 to 1999, to believe in his higher aspirations. Speaking at the campaign event last month, Romer highlighted the need “to enable people to believe in government itself,” and particularly in the leadership of those in office.

“Bennet’s a personal friend. I like him. I respect him. I support him very much,” Romer said in an interview. “He’s my U.S. senator. I didn’t know he was (getting into) this race, but I like Phil anyway.

“Phil, I’ve watched for years. He’s a good man, and I just think he’ll make a great governor. Bennet, he’s my senator — and I hope he stays my senator.”

That sentiment — Bennet for Senate, and Weiser for governor — has been catchy enough among the attorney general’s supporters to make it in recent months.

The two men aren’t the only ones running for the nomination. Fellow Democrats Antonio Martinez, Carmen Broesder, Fatima Fernandez, David Hughes and William Moses have also declared for the race, though none have raised any substantial money as of the most recent campaign finance filings or stood out in other ways.

‘Ready to weigh’ state’s toughest problems

Bennet joined the Senate in 2009, appointed by then-Gov. Bill Ritter to replace Ken Salazar, whom then-President Barack Obama had just appointed U.S. Interior secretary. At the time, Bennet, after years of working mostly behind the scenes, was virtually unknown throughout most of the state.

Ritter had plucked Bennet from the role of DPS superintendent, where he had served since 2005. As the head of the school district, Bennet declining enrollment and a stark achievement gap between students of color and white students, and he made the decision to close a storied northeast Denver high school that had struggled in the decade prior.

Before that, Bennet, a Yale-educated lawyer, had served as then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff. Before he entered Colorado’s political sphere, Bennet worked for billionaire Phil Anschutz, buying up and restructuring distressed businesses, including oil companies and movie theater companies, earning millions of dollars in the process.

He won a close election to a full term in the Senate in 2010, earning 48% of the vote, less than 2 percentage points over his Republican challenger. Colorado was still distinctly purple then, and his election stood out during a national red wave year.

But as Colorado turned azure in the decade to follow, Bennet����ap margins have only increased. He won by nearly 6 percentage points over the Republican challenger in 2016, and was 800 votes shy of an outright majority in a race that also had Green and Libertarian party candidates. In 2022, Bennet won nearly 56% of the vote, routing his Republican rival by nearly 15 percentage points.

He has repeatedly pointed to education and support for children of all economic stripes as key motivations for his public service. That streak continues with his gubernatorial bid.

Three of his four major policy proposals so far have circled education and child care, with ideas to tie education to job opportunities, to lower child care costs and give special benefits to child care workers, and to create new rules around online safety for children, such as social media regulations and banning cell phones in classrooms.

The fourth proposal, on housing affordability, looks to help families dig roots in the Centennial State and help their kids find their own Colorado dream. That includes expanding state-supported housing by 30% over the next decade.

“Whether you think you’re the most conservative person in Colorado, or the most liberal or progressive person in Colorado, if our kids can’t afford to live here, it doesn’t matter,” Bennet said in an interview after unveiling his child care proposal. “… We have to unify Colorado — build a coalition across our state to do hard things — and I think I’ve got the experience and the leadership skills to be able to help us.”

Former Colorado House Majority Leader Daneya Esgar said that breadth of experience — and focus on children — helped bring her into his camp early in the race.��

“When I look at Michael’s career, he has a history of governing. He’s been a senator, he’s had to really think about policy issues, he’s had to make important decisions when it comes to votes. And I think that����ap something we really need somebody (who’s) in the governor’s office ready to weigh,” Esgar said. “Specifically, I think what I’ve always appreciated about Michael is the work he’s really done and the vision he has for Colorado’s kids, throughout his entire career.”

But Bennet’s senatorial experience may also be an avenue of attack.

The question of why he’s leaving one of the most powerful political positions in the country to run for office closer to home is all but sure to follow him on the campaign trail, no matter how many times he says why. He will also have to contend with blowback for controversial votes to approve some of Trump’s cabinet nominees.

He raised eyebrows with his pronouncement that he’d time his resignation so he could appoint his own successor to the U.S. Capitol, should he win the governorship.

Former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, a Democrat who represented Colorado from 1987 to 1993, said he told Bennet he wished he’d stay in the Senate, where he was elected to serve, and that he was “surprised and disappointed” he would end his term early. He sees Coloradans as having an appetite for an aggressive posture against the Trump administration, and the Senate provides a unique opportunity to wage that war.

“If I were in the Senate, I’d be as visible as possible fighting Trump,” said Wirth, a Weiser supporter. “I’ve told both Michael and (now-Sen.) John Hickenlooper that I wish they were both a lot more aggressive than they’ve been. They’ve got effectively safe seats, and they ought to be outspoken.”

Willingness to ‘really fight for important values’

While Bennet wants to move to an office 1,700 miles closer to home (and one with much better mountain views), Weiser hopes to hop just a block away from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office downtown.

He has spent much of his career bouncing between Colorado and Washington, D.C. After graduating from New York University’s law school in 1994, Weiser worked as a clerk for 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge David Ebel in Denver. He headed back east to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg later in the decade, and he returned to Colorado in 1999 to join the faculty at the University of Colorado Law School.

He moved east again to work in the Obama administration, and he returned for a final time to serve as dean of the CU law school.��

Weiser turned to elected office in 2018 — and, as with this election cycle, he faced a tough Democratic primary. He edged out state Rep. Joe Salazar by fewer than 5,000 votes to win the nomination. His two general election wins, in 2018 and 2022, were less dramatic affairs amid Colorado’s overall political shift leftward. He won in 2018 by more than 6 percentage points and in 2022 by more than 10.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Weiser has set goals of halving the state’s housing shortage and banning algorithmic rent setting by large corporations — a measure vetoed by Polis in May. He also wants to “Trump-Proof” Colorado and launch a “ColoradoCorps” service program for 18- to 26-year-olds looking at careers in firefighting, law enforcement, education and more.

Former U.S. Rep. David Skaggs, who represented a Colorado district from 1987 to 1999, crossed paths with Weiser at the CU law school after he left Congress. He was “struck from the get-go about how razor sharp his mind is, what a good lawyer he is and what an agreeable fellow he is,” Skaggs said.

But now, he points to Weiser’s willingness to “take on the Trump administration, both Trump 1 and Trump 2, and really fight for important values and legal principles.”

Weiser has been in the thick of state government for seven years now, and there’s no better preparation for managing it as governor than spending the better part of a decade lawyering for it, Skaggs said.

Hancock, the former Denver mayor backing Bennet, complimented Weiser’s legal experience but also contrasted it with Bennet’s broader base of experience. Bennet’s time in city hall, for example, gave him a deeper understanding of issues like local control and how to bring local governments along — without wielding a stick, like recent zoning battles with the state have entailed.

“Mike will have a better understanding of those issues,” Hancock said. “He knows the responsibility of local governments, particularly city councils, and how to negotiate and work those things through. I think he’ll be a little more collaborative in that sense because of that knowledge.”

While Weiser’s tenure as attorney general has turned on legal fights with both Trump administrations, he’s also overseen the distribution of tens of millions of dollars from settlements during the opioid crisis. He challenged the merger of the Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains — the parent companies, respectively, of King Soopers and Safeway — which was called off after judges blocked it. He’s backed consumer protection litigation, and his office has been front and center in negotiations over the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the state and the broader West.

But those high-profile legal fights haven’t necessarily translated into name recognition.

A June poll found Bennet with a decisive lead over Weiser — but almost half of likely voters then said they weren’t familiar with Weiser.��Comparatively, 13% of likely primary voters were unfamiliar with Bennet.

Weiser’s campaign hopes that means he’ll have a fighter’s chance over the next seven months as people start paying more attention to the race.

He made an early splash by backing a proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution that, if approved by voters, would allow the state to gerrymander its congressional districts for partisan advantage, should other states do the same — and as Texas, California and others are doing now. The vote to amend the state constitution to pause its nonpartisan congressional maps wouldn’t be until November 2026, though, making 2028 the earliest election those maps could take effect.

Weiser defended the position by saying he hates gerrymandering but “love(s) our democracy more.” Bennet, for his part, said he wouldn’t take the issue off the table, but the 2026 House elections themselves should be a bigger priority than the amendment.

Weiser plans to win a spot on the primary ballot through the state assembly, which means winning over grassroots Democratic activists.

“If you look at the numbers, we have more current and former elected officials who’ve endorsed me, we’ve got more Colorado donors, and we continue to build that momentum — literally visit by visit, community by community,” Weiser said in early October, after the event with Peña and Romer.��

Regarding endorsements, Bennet counters: “I don’t think my opponent has really added many people since I got in the race, and I think that’s exciting.”

Not all support — or opposition — is set in stone

As the race shapes up, some organizations haven’t landed on either candidate — yet. Some see the narrow field as an opportunity for the candidates to distinguish themselves and for the groups to see how closely Bennet and Weiser align with their own political goals.

Indivisible Colorado, a network of progressive political activists that formed following Trump’s first election in 2016, hasn’t typically endorsed in primary races. But, with Colorado’s regularly blue tint in general elections and a national push for a more aggressive Democratic Party, that could change, said Robin Cellars, a member of Indivisible Colorado’s leadership team.

In particular, the organization wants a governor who will fight back against “this authoritarian takeover” by the Trump administration, push for a tax system that has the rich paying more, and defend against overreach by federal immigration enforcement. The latter might include a ban on law enforcement wearing masks and attempting to prohibit the construction of immigration detention facilities in Colorado.

Organizers don’t want sympathetic social media posts, Cellars said. They want aggressive action from a blue state. She didn’t weigh in on the race between Weiser and Bennet, but Indivisible members will be watching to decide whether the group will endorse.

“We are definitely wanting to reform the Democratic Party by getting quality candidates. And the place to do that is the primaries,” Cellars said. “… In the primaries, that’s where we can really make a difference.”

The Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is working with the campaigns to coordinate events where its members can hear directly from the candidates, CEA President Kevin Vick said. He hopes the union membership will be able to vote on its endorsements by mid-spring.

“I want to give (the candidates) opportunities to speak for themselves,” Vick said. “I know they both have long records in education. I want them to not only be able to relay their records, but if there’s any evolution or learning that they’ve done on their journey — particularly as it relates to education and how we should be treating educators — I think that would be of interest to educators across the state.”

As the race wears on over the next seven months, the victor stands to emerge covered in blue bruises — or, perhaps, campaign-tested and ready to unite the party heading into the general election.

Pettersen, the Lakewood congresswoman who endorsed Bennet, knows it as keenly as any observer of the race. Her husband, political consultant Ian Silverii, is working on Weiser’s campaign.��

“We’re lucky in Colorado to have two amazing public servants running,” Pettersen said. But she also can’t wait for the primary to end.

Then — assuming voters deliver Democrats the governor’s office, as she hopes — the work begins of steering the state through seemingly constant financial pain and the impact of a federal government hostile to Democratic policies.

“Just mitigating the fallout from the failed federal policies, and then trying to come through that while rebuilding the Colorado we want to see — governing through this is going to be one of the most heart-wrenching and difficult things I can imagine,” Pettersen said, citing Medicaid cuts, concerns that rural hospitals could close and changes to food assistance programs. “It’s going to be a gut-wrenching reality to navigate.”

Entitled “When the Mississippi River Runs Low – Why Climate Connects Us All” the discussion centered on the undeniable reality that climate change is shaping our lives every day. We see it whether it����ap rivers that run low, forests that burn hotter and faster, or cities where children can’t safely play outside because the playground equipment has become dangerously hot.

This same week, across town at the United Nations, the president of the United States used his address to once again declare climate change “a hoax,” and the “.” He railed against reality and renewable energy, dismissed science, and painted global cooperation as a conspiracy against America.

Just because the president calls climate change a hoax, doesn’t make it so. Repeating words like “con” and “scam” does not change the facts. It doesn’t change the extreme heat gripping our cities, the catastrophic floods washing away neighborhoods, or the wildfires scarring our mountains. It doesn’t change the lives lost, the billions in damages, or the instability cascading across our economy. And it certainly doesn’t change the reality the American people are living in.

In New York, I saw and heard from leaders from around the world, taking this challenge seriously. Sitting side-by-side were U.S. Senators and governors, utility CEOs and investment bankers, community banks and farmers, mayors and environmental justice leaders, global corporations and local NGOs – all participating because they recognize two fundamental truths.

First, climate change is an undeniable reality that we can see, measure and feel. Work must be done to mitigate it.�� It is not a partisan talking point. The mayor of Phoenix told us her son’s school canceled recess because the playground slide was too hot for children to play safely. That����ap just one story in a sea of evidence — rising tides, stronger hurricanes, devastating floods and relentless wildfires.

Second, inside of this crisis lies an economic opportunity. The clean energy transition is not just a moral imperative, it is a business case. Economies can be built around clean energy, and communities can thrive. Renewable energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and sustainable infrastructure are already driving job creation and investment across the globe. Countries like China and India understand this, and they are racing ahead. If America chooses denial over action, we cede those opportunities — and the jobs, industries, and influence that come with them — to others.

This is where Colorado matters.

Colorado has long been a leader in renewable energy and climate innovation. A recent analysis by a Colorado media outlet ranked our state among the top in the nation for clean energy development, thanks to policies that prioritize wind, solar, and efficiency. Our universities are pioneering research on battery storage and grid integration. Our utilities are cutting emissions while keeping rates affordable. And across our rural communities, farmers and ranchers are adopting practices that conserve water, reduce carbon, and strengthen local economies.

These successes didn’t happen because Washington handed them to us. They happened because Coloradans–like so many other Americans—saw the risks of climate change and the promise of clean energy, and we acted. Our businesses, nonprofits, local governments, and citizens led the way. We refused to wait for permission.

And that����ap the lesson for today.

If the federal government won’t take climate change seriously, we must–and we will. States can continue passing bold policies. Cities can keep innovating. Businesses can invest in renewables and efficiency because it����ap good for their bottom line. Individuals can support clean energy and vote for leaders who understand the stakes. Together, we can build momentum from the ground up, no matter who occupies the Oval Office.

Make no mistake: it would be best to haveCongress and the White House  invest in infrastructure, set ambitious targets, and lead in global climate negotiations. But the absence of leadership in Washington cannot become an excuse for paralysis. It must become a rallying cry for all of us to step up.

The president may be unwilling to step up, but in Colorado–and in communities across the country—we call it reality. And we call the clean energy transition what it truly is: the greatest economic and moral opportunity of our time.

They say that the Roman Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned. But we will not let that happen. Americans are rolling up their sleeves! We are proving that climate action is not just possible–it����ap profitable, practical, and profoundly necessary. And if Washington won’t lead, we will lead, in states, counties, cities and towns alike.

Because the stakes are too high. The evidence is too clear.

Bill Ritter is the 41st Governor of Colorado, Chairman of the Board for the Climate Group/North America and a Principal at Freestone Strategies.

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If Bennet wants to show voters that he truly cares about Colorado, he should resign now to run for governor.

Anything less would be unfair to Coloradans during this time of unprecedented turmoil in Washington, D.C. No one from Colorado is better suited to fight President Donald Trump’s out-of-control agenda than Bennet, but if he has his heart set on coming home to be governor, he must step aside for someone else to fill his seat for the next three years.

Bennet is only 2 years and four months into his six-year term in the U.S. Senate. If he were to resign now, Gov. Jared Polis could appoint someone to serve almost four years in the Senate before the November 2028 election. That is a meaningful term for Coloradans.

All politicians must balance their time in office between the duties of their job and the rigors of the campaign trail. A major shortcoming of the U.S. House is that the two-year terms force politicians to constantly be in campaign mode. The six-year terms of the Senate give our nation’s 100 most powerful legislators a reprieve from the trail to get work done and fight for their constituents.

Bennet says he can easily manage representing Colorado and running a campaign; after all, he’s done it three times before in his bids for re-election. But we see a difference. Incumbents finish off their term — no matter the length — with a campaign blitz that often has an uncontested primary to a general election. Bennet will be pock marking the middle of his term with a grueling primary against Attorney General Phil Weiser in June 2026 and then what could prove to be a challenging general election that November.

Bennet poured salt on the wound of losing a tenured U.S. Senator Friday when he announced his plans to time his resignation so that he could fill his own vacancy were he to win.

If Bennet wants to beat Weiser, starting out his campaign with a political power grab is not a good look.

Bennet must send a clear message to Coloradans that he is in it to win it, and that he won’t play political games with his vacant seat. We are certain the power to appoint his successor would sideline some Democrats on a short list for the appointment who otherwise would be tempted to back Weiser. That alone doesn’t feel like a fair fight.

Colorado Democrats and unaffiliated voters deserve a robust primary between Bennet and Weiser.

Gov. Jared Polis is trustworthy in appointing Bennet����ap successor to the U.S. Senate.

Ironically, Bennet himself was an appointment. Gov. Bill Ritter appointed Bennet on Jan. 21, 2009, to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Ken Salazar so he could serve as secretary of the Interior. Bennet quickly faced re-election in 2010. That year, due to both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Biden leaving for the White House and Sen. Hillary Clinton becoming secretary of State, there were a record number of appointed members serving in the U.S. Senate.

After the corruption involving Obama’s seat – which contributed to the incarceration of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich – many states passed laws either stripping governors of the power of appointment altogether or requiring a special election to be held as quickly as possible following an appointment to give voters a say.

Who can forget the recording of Blagojevich played by prosecutors: “”I mean, I’ve got this thing, and it’s [expletive] golden. And I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing.”

Today 10 states authorize gubernatorial appointments but require a special election quickly, and 5 states don’t allow governors to make an appointment at all but hold the seat empty until a special election can be conducted. Colorado lawmakers should consider adding our state to the list of states that make sure voters get to pick replacements quickly through ad-hoc elections. A federal effort to eliminate the ability for governors to make appointments was introduced, but leadership never let the measure get a vote.

Not all appointments are bad, however. Bennet has served us well, and his first re-election came quickly because Salazar’s term was up in 2010 anyway. We have endorsed Bennet for Senate in all of his bids for re-election because he is competent, honest, and hard working.

Bennet, however, should resign to run.

Trying to have it all – retain his senate seat if he loses and hand-picking his own replacement if he wins — is unfair to Coloradans.

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Bennet, 60, made his formal announcement Friday morning in Denver’s City Park — becoming, one political analyst said, “immediately the frontrunner” in the race. He confirmed his candidacy to The Denver Post beforehand, saying in an interview that he hoped to bring his federal legislative experience to his home state’s executive branch and help Colorado navigate potential cuts and other uncertainty during President Donald Trump’s second administration.

“I am deeply, deeply, profoundly worried about Donald Trump and the wrecking ball he has aimed at our democracy and our economy,” Bennet said in the interview, noting potential cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs. He argued that economic uncertainty has fueled modern politics.

Michael Bennet: I’m running for governor because Washington D.C. is too broken to answer Colorado’s needs

But, he added, "as we're dealing with that -- as we're fighting everything that's wrong with the current administration -- it's important for us to create better solutions for our shared challenges in Colorado. We can forge a better politics than we see in D.C. right now."

He was joined Friday morning by a slew of Colorado elected officials -- including U.S. Reps. Jason Crow and Joe Neguse, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and former Mayor Wellington Webb -- and dozens of supporters.

Bennet has served in the Senate since 2009, when he was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Ken Salazar when Salazar joined the Obama administration. He's since won election to the seat three times -- and by a larger margin in each election, most recently garnering nearly 56% of the vote in 2022. He would be up for reelection next in 2028.

But now, Bennet said, he feels he'd be "better situated as the governor to help us provide a view of what this future is going to look like, from the state of Colorado, than I would be able to do from (Washington)."

During his speech Friday morning, Bennet highlighted the need to drive down costs and increase affordability in health care and housing in particular.

Economic hopelessness -- people worrying about affording to stay in their homes and raise their kids in Colorado -- drove some voters to cast ballots for the "chaos" of Trump, Bennet said. Bettering Colorado will make it "an example to the rest of the country on how to fight Trump and how to drive a stake through Trumpism," he said.

Bennet joins Weiser in Democratic primary

Bennet's name recognition and long history in Colorado politics -- and the political reshuffling that an open Senate seat would set in motion, should he win next year -- could help clear the field of other major potential Democratic candidates. Bennet plans to remain in the Senate through the gubernatorial campaign.

If he wins, he said, he'd "fulfill my responsibility" under state law and the constitution and appoint his successor, rather than resigning earlier so Gov. Jared Polis could fill the vacancy.

Polis, like the rest of Colorado's constitutional officers, is term-limited and cannot seek reelection in 2026.

So far, Attorney General Phil Weiser is the only other prominent Democrat to launch an official bid for governor, entering the race in January. His campaign announced he raised more than $1.9 million through the end of March, a sum that includes a transfer of nearly $158,000 from his attorney general campaign.

Salazar also has publicly mulled a bid; on Friday morning, he put out a statement praising both Weiser and Bennet without shedding light on his own intentions.

Coloradans haven't elected a Republican to lead the state since 2002, and the state has only trended bluer over the last decade.

In a statement Thursday, shortly after several media outlets reported Bennet would seek the office, Weiser said he'd spent the past six years serving "Colorado as the People's Lawyer," while Bennet was working in Washington. But he also softened any jabs at Bennet, adding: "Now more than ever, we need experienced Democratic leaders in Washington."

"We must protect Colorado and oppose Trump’s illegal actions, not appease him," Weiser said. "I am the fighter Colorado needs as our next governor. Two years ago, the voters sent Sen. Bennet back to D.C. because we believed he would be there for us no matter what -- especially in historically dangerous moments like the one we currently face."

Bennet, in return, said Weiser "has been a great attorney general, and has been a great public servant" and a "great friend."

But Bennet highlighted his own "fairly unique set of experiences" in the Senate, Denver Public Schools and the Denver mayor's office as higher qualifications. Before entering politics, he worked as a lawyer and then in business for Colorado billionaire Phil Anschutz.

Among other long-rumored candidates for governor, Neguse has instead endorsed Bennet, while Secretary of State Jena Griswold launched a bid for attorney general this week.

Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State University, said Bennet is "immediately the frontrunner" in the race -- but may not completely clear the field.

Saunders called Weiser a good candidate in a typical gubernatorial race, but in his view, it changes the odds when a sitting senator makes the highly unusual move of seeking a governor's office. In addition to Bennet's personal qualifications, he also brings decades of campaign infrastructure to bear.

"Bennet is going to be ahead in campaign finance, he's going to be ahead in campaign organization and staff, he's going to be ahead in name recognition," Saunders said. "All those things are essential for anyone trying to secure the Democratic nomination for the governor's job."

On the Republican side, state Sen. Mark Baisley, state Rep. Scott Bottoms and Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell have launched gubernatorial campaigns.

The primary elections for the office will be in summer 2026 and the general election will be held that November.

Bennet says he's open to TABOR reform

Bennet's bid highlights the circular nature of Colorado politics.

He served as John Hickenlooper's chief of staff when Hickenlooper was Denver mayor in the early 2000s. Not long after Gov. Bill Ritter appointed Bennet to the Senate seat, Hickenlooper won the 2010 gubernatorial election. Hickenlooper, after two terms as governor, joined Bennet in the Senate after winning election in 2020.

Both men ran unsuccessful campaigns for the presidency in 2020. Now, they could flip-flop the roles they held for much of the 2010s.

Bennet praised Polis in an interview, particularly his signature free full-day kindergarten program, but added that "no governor can do it all."

Housing, health care and mental health care remain challenges for the state, Bennet said. He also acknowledged the state's ongoing budget constraints. Lawmakers this week moved closer to closing a budget with $1.2 billion in cuts as costs collided with the spending cap set by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

State lawmakers have floated some ideas to adjust TABOR, such as another reset of the formula used to set the cap or an exemption of certain spending, like Medicaid, from it. Bennet did not endorse a specific change but said, "I'm sure (TABOR) will be part of any campaign," including his.

"We are facing enormous budget challenges as a state, and TABOR is clearly part of that problem," Bennet said. "We've got to have a comprehensive discussion about what we should do and how TABOR should be reformed."

In addition to electoral politics, Bennet has served as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools -- a job that proved formative for one of his marquee congressional victories. As part of the 2021 stimulus bill, Bennet won inclusion of a massive expansion of the federal child tax credit, in the form of $300 monthly checks to parents.

Those only persisted for a year -- but the policy became something of a white whale for him after it cut child poverty in half, yet wasn't renewed by Congress. He introduced a new version of it earlier this week, joined by nearly all of the Democratic caucus.

Recent approach to Trump

When President Donald Trump took office for a second term in January, Bennet struck a more collaborative tone than some of his Democratic colleagues. He's tied for eighth among Democrats in terms of the most votes cast in favor of Trump's nominees, according to by The New York Times.

But he's also spoken out against Trump and Elon Musk -- the world's richest man and chief financier of Trump's successful reelection bid -- including by accusing them of "wanton destruction" of the government in with Colorado Public Radio.

In the new interview with The Post, Bennet highlighted his fights against some of Trump's more controversial appointments, like Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as fights for the expanded child tax credit.

"We all have a shared battle," Bennet said. "This is one of those really important moments in American history, where it really matters how we come out on the other side. And I think Colorado is in a position to lead all 50 states, and I look forward to being able to help guide that as the next governor of the state of Colorado."

While China and India surge ahead in clean energy investments and storage advancements, some in Washington want to take us back to the mid-1970s — a time when energy policy was dictated by outdated assumptions and fossil fuel dependence. This is not just about climate change; it����ap about maintaining our economic and geopolitical edge in a world increasingly powered by clean energy.

For decades, Colorado has been a leader in the clean energy transition, proving that smart policy can drive economic growth. As governor, I signed over 50 pieces of legislation related to clean energy and climate. Under the leadership of Governors John Hickenlooper and Jared Polis, our state has continued to embrace wind, solar, storage, and emerging technologies like geothermal. The result? Lower energy costs, greater energy independence, and thousands of good-paying jobs. This is the model for the rest of the country, but the progress we’ve made is now at risk.

President Donald Trump and his allies , a move that would undermine America’s clean energy advantage. The IRA has been instrumental in attracting more than $129 billion in clean energy factory investments since its passage in 2022, with over 80% of these projects planned for Republican-led congressional districts. Rolling back these incentives would not only harm our national economy but disproportionately impact those very districts that have the most to gain from clean energy job growth and lower electric bills.

The argument for clean energy is simple: economics. According to Lazard’s 2023 analysis of the unsubsidized levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), both onshore wind and utility-scale solar are now cheaper than coal and competitive with natural gas. This has been the case for wind energy since 2015. Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported steel, however, threaten to drive up costs for the wind industry, further hampering U.S. competitiveness.

Meanwhile, energy demand is increasing.

Xcel Energy put forward a proposal for the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to add 14 gigawatts of additional generation. The PUC will ultimately decide that number for Xcel but as everything becomes electrified, we need to figure out how to meet that demand efficiently and equitably. Investing in new clean energy solutions is supported by the IRA and it is designed to ensure that these investments continue by converting the investment and production tax credits into a long-term clean energy tax credit starting in 2026. This means not only wind and solar but also geothermal, nuclear, and energy storage will benefit.

But, uncertainty around federal funding is creating unnecessary barriers. The Colorado Energy Office has highlighted the great uncertainty states are facing, with funds obligated but not set. For example, National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) funds had all approvals removed by this administration, meaning states like Colorado, which was initially obligated $44 million, have seen that drop to just $8 million. So, EV charging infrastructure is now in question, leaving states scrambling for solutions.

Similarly, USDA grants for rural cooperatives transitioning to clean energy — such as those for Tri-State, CORE electric cooperative and other cooperatives — remain frozen, resulting in a potential loss of a billion dollars. The biggest cost burden, however, comes from the potential removal of tax credits. Production, investment, and advanced energy tax credits are essential in keeping electricity costs down for Colorado consumers. Utilities like Xcel and Tri-State had already made commitments relying on these credits. If eliminated, the cost of electricity for Coloradans will undoubtedly rise.

Even oil and gas executives are warning against gutting the IRA. Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub directly urged Trump to maintain tax credits that support carbon capture and direct air capture technology. ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, and Chevron have also stressed the importance of these provisions for their investments in low-carbon technologies. If major oil companies recognize the value of these incentives, why would we throw them away?

Colorado can continue leading on clean energy, but without federal alignment, our progress will be slower and more expensive. When states and the federal government work together, we can achieve a more reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy system. As General George S. Patton famously said, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” The U.S. has been leading the global energy transition, but if we roll back the IRA, we will be ceding that leadership to China and India.

We cannot power a 21st-century economy with 1970s energy policy. The path forward is clear: double down on our clean energy advantage, invest in wind, solar, storage, and emerging technologies, and maintain the market-based incentives that are driving innovation, job creation, and lower electric bills. Our economic future depends on it.

Bill Ritter, Jr was Colorado’s 41st Governor and is a partner at Freestone Strategies, LLC in Denver.

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