That attorney, Chris Murray, and the Republican candidate’s campaign have not returned messages over the past week seeking information about who is behind the shop. But a campaign finance report indicates it’s a limited liability company linked to Marx.

A promotional email from the store Wednesday included a disclaimer that it was funded by “Not Shook LLC,” a Wyoming company that was registered two weeks before Marx launched his campaign last year. The LLC’s owners are not included on its registration paperwork, but in late July, Marx’s campaign received a $5,000 contribution from the LLC for logo licensing.

The donation came from “Not Shook LLC — Victor Marx.” The address included in the contribution record is Marx’s campaign headquarters, which is also his nonprofit’s training center — and his former home — in Colorado Springs.

, Marx, a former nonprofit ministry leader, denied that he was behind Not Shook, saying: “I don’t have anything to do with it, period.” He said the campaign finance filing was incorrect.

“Inadvertently, they put my name on the TRACER report,” Marx continued, referring to the state’s campaign finance reporting system. “We had to correct that. It’s being cured as we speak. I never caught it because I never looked at it. I didn’t know anything. But that’s the way it was entered. Again, it’s just another silly mistake.”

He said he has not received any financial benefits from the third-party vendor.

Marx’s campaign has refused to answer questions about the vendor since Murray described the arrangement last week, and the financial disclosure — together with the online store’s email — provides the only insight into who’s handling the campaign’s unusual merchandise arrangement.

Martha Tierney, a veteran campaign attorney who has worked for the Colorado Democratic Party, said she had never seen a state-level campaign outsource its merchandise to a third party.

“I have never seen it here,” she said. “And I’ve certainly never seen this kind of a setup, where the candidate appears to own the merchandise shop.”

Marx has boosted the website: On July 30, three days after Not Shook’s donation to the campaign, that supporters who already had contributed the maximum to his campaign should visit the store.

He previously acknowledged that the campaign errantly had accepted donations above what individuals were allowed to give under Colorado law. The individual maximum is $1,450.

The store, he suggested, offered another path for maxed-out supporters.

“If they order merchandise, there’s no limit on that. They can order as much as they want. That will really help us,” Marx told his wife in the interview. 9News was the first to report on Marx directing people to the site.

Under state campaign finance rules, LLCs that donate to candidate campaigns must identify an individual associated with the donation. Not Shook’s contribution to Marx’s campaign did not mention any other owners or company officers. Last year, the LLC was registered in Wyoming on the same day that Marx bought his campaign website domain name, according to campaign finance reports.

Murray did not return an email seeking comment Wednesday. The same day, Marx spokeswoman Rachael Flick directed The Denver Post to Murray’s radio interview. She did not respond to prior requests about the third-party vendor and declined to comment further in a follow-up email Thursday.

Marx’s Democratic opponent, Attorney General Phil Weiser, also runs a merchandise shop through his campaign website, and his financial reports include expenditures for running it. There’s also an outside merchandise store purporting to sell Weiser merchandise. A Weiser spokesman said Thursday that the shop was not affiliated with the campaign and that the campaign was unaware of it until asked by The Post.

Questions about where money goes

The Marx-promoting outside merch store, , sells items with Marx’s campaign logo as well as his books and his branded coffee. It was created July 7, . Marx officially won the GOP primary, which was a close race, two days later.

The website lists no information about who operates it or whether it financially supports Marx’s campaign.

It sells routine campaign merchandise — bumper stickers, hats, shirts — as well as pricey “bundles” of Marx gear that run up to $1,299 a pop. The most expensive bundle includes a “private group Zoom” call with Marx.

The merchandising saga is the latest sideshow in which the Marx campaign has become embroiled in recent months. His campaign faces several campaign finance complaints and recently moved to refile nearly all of its financial reports.

He touted an endorsement that didn’t exist, expressed frustration at reporters’ ongoing focus on his difficult-to-verify personal history, and from other leading Republican figures. He joked in Loveland recently that other candidates didn’t want to appear in photos with him, according to the Colorado Sun.

In Murray’s interview last week with conservative radio host Jeff Hunt — a prominent Marx supporter — the campaign’s attorney said it had sold its merchandise in bulk to a third party for the same amount that the campaign paid for it. Murray indicated to Hunt that the outside entity was not affiliated with the campaign, and anyone purchasing things from it was not financially supporting Marx’s gubernatorial bid.

He said the merchandise was being sold for the price that the campaign paid to purchase it in the first place. The campaign has spent at least $108,000 on merchandise, according to campaign finance records.

Marx’s call for supporters to patronize the third-party merch shop spurred a campaign finance complaint that accused Marx of trying to get around individual donation limits. In an initial review, the secretary of state’s office wrote that the complaint alleged sufficient facts to support the complaint, and it gave Marx’s campaign until Friday to tell the state if it intended to fix the issues.

Tierney said it was unclear if the third-party setup violated state law. The state constitution prohibits people from acting as a “conduit” to funnel money into a campaign — but the definition of “conduit” does not include candidates and their immediate family members.

In any case, she said, the website appears to mislead voters.

“Are people being duped into thinking this is going to the campaign when it’s not — if in fact it¶¶Ňőap not?” she said.

‘The material was sold at cost’

The campaign continues to operate its own “official” merch store, although Marx’s website prominently directs people to the third-party outlet.

Murray told Hunt that selling merchandise wasn’t worth the effort for the campaign.

“The benefit, the financial benefit, is going to the merch store owners and operators. They are not campaign contributions to the Victor Marx campaign,” Hunt summarized back to Murray. “And the material was sold at cost. So there was no financial benefit back to the Victor Marx campaign. The merch store buys all these T-shirts, sells them themselves. I think the bottom line, Chris Murray, is that this is not Victor Marx’s merch store right now.”

“Yeah, that’s correct,” Murray replied.

Marx’s daughter, Brie Marx, directed her Instagram followers to the third-party store in mid-July, in a post that included a favorable comment from Marx’s wife. A former Marx spokesman that Brie Marx was handling the campaign’s merchandise sales. She’s received more than $22,000 from the campaign this year and is one of several people in Marx’s personal orbit who have been paid by the campaign.

The Post purchased a bumper sticker from the third-party merch store this month. It was shipped from a Colorado Springs address with a “Victor Marx for Governor” return label. The shipping address is a postal annex frequently used by a significant number of groups and businesses. Among them is another LLC established in Marx’s name, as well as his wife’s publishing company.

The merchant store did not charge The Post any sales tax for the bumper sticker. While campaigns often don’t charge sales tax for merchandise, that’s because the purchase is packaged as a contribution to the campaign, Tierney said.

But such a distinction seemingly wouldn’t apply to a third-party merchandise vendor that is not collecting donations and is not affiliated with a political campaign.

Last September, the same month that Not Shook LLC was registered in Wyoming, an Instagram account was created under the same name. The account appears never to have posted anything to its page, although it did boost Marx and criticize his then-GOP primary opponents in comments on other accounts’ posts. The account also follows several Marx-affiliated accounts, including one dedicated to his dogs and accounts for Marx’s family, various supporters and campaign staffers.

Sometime between late Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, the account’s name was changed. No one returned a Thursday direct message from a Post reporter, and by Thursday evening, the account was no longer visible.

Update, Aug. 28: This story was updated to include additional merchandise spending records.

The pardons cover a range of convictions across the state, including theft, drug possession and fraud. Twenty-eight of those people pleaded guilty and one was convicted, according to pardon letters published by the governor’s office.

“Of the hundreds of applications for pardons my office receives, yours is one of the few I am granting,” Polis wrote in letters to the people he pardoned.

“I am doing so because you have demonstrated your commitment to moving past your conviction and starting anew, while taking with you lessons you have learned throughout your life,” he continued.

Polis highlighted their successes after conviction, including raising children and grandchildren, pursuing higher education, serving in the military and excelling in their careers.

The governor is the only person who can grant clemency for state crimes under the Colorado Constitution, which can mean a commutation — a reduced criminal sentence — or a pardon, which is full forgiveness of a crime.

Polis made national headlines earlier this year when he granted clemency and freed former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was serving a nine-year sentence. The move sparked significant backlash from other elected officials and the Colorado Democratic Party.

Two members of the clemency board spoke out against the decision, and the governor fired them.

To date, Polis has granted 165 individual pardons and 35 commutations, along with 4,083 blanket pardons for marijuana possession and four pardons for psilocybin or psilocin possession, spokesperson Eric Maruyama said.

The governor’s previous clemency actions included commuting the sentences for two men serving life in prison for murder and reducing the 110-year sentence for a truck driver convicted in a Lakewood crash that killed four people.

People pardoned by Gov. Jared Polis on Aug. 26, 2026:

• Xochilt Alamillo
• Harmony Baddeley-Spurlock
• Idania Beltran
• Derek Bilbrey
• Darren Black
• James Bruntz, Jr.
• Sarah Bunting
• Seidilyn Burgos
• Jonathan Carey
• Hemmingway Dai
• Jeremy Dieckhoff
• Scott Dillon
• Steve Estwick, Sr.
• Sabrina Flanagan
• Ernest Flowers
• Joshua Hayden
• Max Hernandez
• Steven Holzwarth
• Aidan Kehoe
• Robert Kile
• Joseph Martinez
• Ian McGehee
• Chad Meiers
• Haven Rohnert
• Melanie Roth
• Estela Saenz
• Joshua Salazar
• Justin Sandefur
• Travis Weickum

Updated 4:45 p.m. Aug. 26, 2026: This story has been updated to report that most of the pardoned individuals pleaded guilty to crimes, but one was convicted. 

In one, Jews are not people. We are a topic. Everyone feels entitled to define us, use us, and erase us from conversations about our lives.

This broken reality was on full display in a recent Denver Post opinion piece.

Start with the controversy the piece covered. A Republican county commissioner posted an image of Phil Weiser with horns — imagery that echoed other far-right antisemitism this election cycle. The elected official claimed he did not know Weiser was Jewish. Rather than apologize, he started a GoFundMe to sue Kyle Clark for covering it. The Colorado Republican Party has said nothing.

The Colorado Democratic Party rightly condemned the image and then immediately used it to score political points.

Yet I have seen nothing close to that moral clarity when Jewish groups and leaders raise concerns about Democratic candidates and activists whose rhetoric isolates and vilifies Jews. Instead, figures on the left lecture us about our own identity. They insist that Israel can be decoupled from Jewish identity, despite most Jews saying otherwise.

Some on the left blame rising antisemitism on Jewish advocacy or Israel itself rather than grapple with years of vicious rhetoric about Zionists. They impose a false choice between worrying about antisemitism and advocating for Palestinians, punishing anyone who rejects this binary. They , of all people, for . She felt compelled to publicly clarify that she had not intended to move to the center on the subject.

Then there is the op-ed in The Denver Post by Krista Kafer on Sunday. It begins by asking, “What does it mean to be antisemitic?” but never asks a single Jew for an answer. Instead, a non-Jewish author tells us not to get “exercised” about the Weiser image and dismisses our concerns about Kiros by arguing against a position we never took: that any criticism of Israeli policy is antisemitic.

Stop using this straw man to dodge our real concerns.

Zionist organizations criticize Israeli extremists and policies all the time. Jewish groups on the left and right have explained how to criticize Israeli policy without being antisemitic. But declaring every possible Jewish state inherently illegitimate is not policy criticism. It places a central part of most Jews’ identity outside the bounds of acceptable public life.

That is what makes this reality so outrageous. People feel comfortable telling Jews who we are, what matters to us, whether hatred against us counts, and which of us are acceptable. When we object, they replace our concerns with an argument we never made. No other community is expected to accept this.

Then there is the other reality: the one Jews in Colorado live in.

Two weeks ago, someone drove past the home of an elderly Jewish couple and threw a tire onto their lawn marked “f*** you Zionists.” The self-serving claim that hostility toward Zionists has nothing to do with Jews collapses yet again. Imagine finding that outside your home. Imagine wondering who did it and whether they might return.

This was not an outlier. This summer, the Winston Downs neighborhood association warned of increasing harassment of Jewish residents. alleging the Boulder Valley School District failed to protect a Jewish student from nearly two years of harassment, including being choked with a cable and called antisemitic slurs. A Denver Jewish facility . That¶¶Ňőap just three months in the life of Colorado Jews.

Here is the thing. These realities are interconnected. Jewish safety requires more than condemning hateful images and protecting Jews from physical violence. It also requires the basic agency afforded to other communities — the right to define our identity and decide which emotional, cultural, and political commitments are part of it.

Stop denying our agency and identity. Stop making a show of your outrage only when the other side is responsible. Stop speaking for us.

We’re left to live with the consequences.

Brandon Rattiner is the senior director of the nonpartisan Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). JCRC is the largest collective voice of Colorado’s Jewish community, bringing together nearly 50 Jewish organizations to help ensure that the Jewish community and our neighbors can thrive.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Just this week, Coloradans for Victor Marx posted on social media an AI-generated picture of gubernatorial opponent Phil Weiser, who is Jewish, with devil horns surrounded by the red flames of hell. The Colorado Democratic Party and other Marx critics called the post antisemitic, noting the historical use of such images to dehumanize Jews.

The creator of the image, Montrose County Commissioner Sean Pond, .

A different zealous Marx for governor supporter tried to deflect criticism by accusing Democrats themselves of antisemitism.

He noted that last year’s firebombing attack on Jewish demonstrators in Boulder happened while Phil Weiser was attorney general, as though Weiser could have prevented it. The Marx devotee also accused congressional candidate Melat Kiros of saying Israel got what it deserved when Hamas massacred and kidnapped civilians.

“We’re not antisemitic, you are,” each side seemed to say.

Who is right in this schoolyard scrap? Is drawing horns on a picture of a Jewish candidate necessarily evidence of anti-Jewish animus? Did Kiros actually say Israel had it coming? The answer to both questions is no, but that doesn’t mean these candidates deserve your vote. They don’t.

Let¶¶Ňőap start with horns and the fiery pit post. The picture could have been a racist dog whistle but was more likely just another artless effort by Marx supporters to inspire the righteous to join the blundersome crusade. There’s no point getting exercised by it. Political campaigns have depicted opponents as pure evil for as long as there have been campaigns. This one is going down in flames.

As for Kiros, her criticism is directed at the state of Israel and its policies toward Palestinians, not Jews as a people or Jewish Americans. She stated, “There is no justification for the attacks on Israel on October 7th.” Her lament about the conditions that foster violence is not approval. Kiros grieves the loss of 73,000 Gazans, the colonization of the Occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers, settler violence toward Palestinians, and the American government¶¶Ňőap ongoing no-questions-asked support for these policies.

Critics should read her “Dear U.S. Law Firms” letter and listen to her interviews before reflexively denouncing her. Criticizing the nation-state of Israel is no more antisemitic than criticizing China is sinophobia.

Opponents are right, however, to decry Kiros’ failure to characterize the Boulder firebomber’s motives as antisemitic, saying it could have been motivated by anti-Zionism or antisemitism. Were white officers who sicced police dogs on Black civil rights marchers in the 1960s anti-Black or anti-desegregation? The right answer is “both.” Likewise, the firebomber murdered Karen Diamond because she was Jewish and a supporter of Israel. Such antisemitism must be condemned without equivocation.

While charges of Kiros’ antisemitism are not supported by evidence, there are other reasons to oppose her candidacy and to support the independent moderate left candidate who just qualified for the Congressional District 1 ballot, Shimon Blau. Kiros is one of eight candidates headed to the General Election around the country who are associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

To create their platform, the DSA rooted through the dustbin of history for ideas. They want the government to take over important industries and businesses like energy production and transportation. “The commanding heights” of the economy to use Vladimir Lenin’s term. That didn’t work out well for the Soviet Union.

They also propose to abolish the U.S. Senate and subordinate the Supreme Court and presidency to the House of Representatives. The French tried this in 1791 when the revolutionaries created a unitary legislature. Without any checks and balances, tyranny of the majority soon followed. Heads rolled. Some 17,000 French men and women went to the guillotine. We don’t need to make the same mistake.

Those aren’t the only bad ideas in the DSA platform. Voters should consider any association with that far-left party a black mark on a candidate’s resume. Kiros is not antisemitic, but her understanding of public policy and history is seriously deficient. Voters should question her judgment. There are other candidates more deserving of their vote in the CD1 race.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

The wins in Tuesday’s primary amounted to a clean sweep for the outside spending group funded by the state’s largest labor unions, with progressives toppling four candidates backed by a network of largely opaque PACs that spent well over $2 million on the races this year.

The liberal primary victories in races for safe seats reverse, in part, gains made by the centrist organization One Main Street two years ago. That’s when the dark-money group, which doesn’t disclose all of its donors, won nearly every race in which it engaged to support “pragmatic” Democrats.

The latest results came amid an ongoing power struggle within the state legislature’s dominant Democratic Party, which has played out in primary campaigns for several years.

“This is a warning sign to any politician who thinks their political future lies in corporate money rather than the interests of working people across the state,” Dennis Dougherty, the executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO, which funded the labor PAC, said in a statement Wednesday.

One of the candidates who won two years ago, Rep. Sean Camacho in Denver’s House District 6, fell to progressive challenger Iris Halpern on Tuesday night. Camacho had unseated one of the Capitol’s most left-wing — and controversial — lawmakers in 2024, former Rep. Elisabeth Epps, only to fall himself in another deep-pocketed primary.

Camacho was behind by roughly 1,300 votes as of Wednesday morning, when he conceded. District 6 roughly follows the East Colfax Ave. corridor from the state Capitol to the Aurora border.

His loss will be a blow to moderate Democrats in the legislature, where Camacho was the co-chair of the One Main Street-linked Opportunity Caucus. That group is composed of more business-friendly lawmakers. The caucus has been heavily criticized by more liberal legislators and groups, and Camacho’s loss gave a win to the labor groups, which wanted to knock the caucus back on its heels.

More than $1 million in outside spending poured into the race.

Elsewhere in Denver, Chela Garcia Irlando crushed Andrés Carrera for the soon-to-be-vacant Senate District 34 seat. More than $1.5 million was spent on that race. Most of that came from the unions-versus-One Main Street conflict, though Conservation Colorado also backed Irlando while an outside group funded by sports betting companies came in for Carrera. The seat covers part of downtown and west and northwest Denver, and it attracted national attention, with Irlando endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and labor icon Dolores Huerta.

Despite the deep spending, Irlando more than doubled Carrera’s vote total as of Wednesday, beating him by nearly 10,000 votes.

In Broomfield, Rep. Kenny Nguyen held off One Main Street-backed challenger Heidi Henkel, who serves on the city’s council. Nguyen narrowly beat Henkel earlier this year for a vacancy appointment to the legislature, and he drew One Main Street’s ire after criticizing the group on Facebook.

In Aurora, Rep. Jamie Jackson — also a vacancy appointee — overcame Anne Keke, who sits on the local school board, despite similar outside spending.

Perhaps the most surprising win of the night came from Gabriel Cervantes in Thornton. He beat Democratic Rep. Jacque Phillips, another Opportunity Caucus member, by nearly 600 votes, despite little outside support and negative attacks about past social media comments.

Like Camacho, Phillips had unseated a sitting lawmaker two years ago with the backing of One Main Street-aligned groups.

In one of One Main Street’s two wins Tuesday, Sarah Woodson cruised to victory in the primary over Rep. Mandy Lindsay. Lindsay, who represents Aurora, received no outside support and fell to Woodson by a roughly 2-to-1 vote margin.

In House District 19, which stretches southeast from Longmont, Jillaire McMillan beat two Democratic opponents for the chance to take on Republican Rep. Dan Woog in November. McMillan received outside support from a group funded by One Main Street.

Outside of metro Denver, another contested Democratic primary to represent Summit County in the House was close and had offered a glimmer of hope for One Main Street. But on Wednesday, Chris Floyd, who is also backed by the group, lost to Consuelo Redhorse. The AP called the race in Redhorse’s favor, with a leading margin of 164 votes as of 4:27 p.m.

Another sitting lawmaker lost on Tuesday. Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson, who entered the legislature on a vacancy appointment last year, lost to Terri Carver in the Republican primary for a Senate seat in El Paso County. Carver comfortably toppled Zamora Wilson, earning nearly 15,500 votes to double the incumbent’s haul.

The Associated Press for Hickenlooper, who had 57% of the votes with nearly 78% of the votes counted. That margin continued to hold at 9:30 p.m. with 84% of the votes counted.

“Democrats are united,” Hickenlooper told supporters gathered in Denver at Steuben’s. “We are going to take back the U.S. Senate, we are going to take back the House. We are going to stop President Trump in his tracks.”

Hickenlooper, a pro-business centrist, pivoted to the left, at least in his campaign messaging, highlighting his work to expand healthcare access, boost housing affordability, cut environmental emissions and overhaul ICE.

Colorado election results for the 2026 primary

Gonzales, who declined corporate campaign contributions, had labeled herself as part of a new generation of Democrats looking to oust what she described as "do-nothing" incumbents backed by billionaires.

A community organizer and immigrant advocate, Gonzales graduated from Yale University in 2005 and was elected to the Colorado State Senate in 2018, where she currently serves as Majority Whip.

Among her key issues were reforming the immigration system and eliminating ICE; providing universal childcare, elder care and Medicare coverage; and protecting voter rights.

"The fight -- for an economy that works for us, a democracy that includes us, and a future that belongs to us -- continues," Gonzales wrote in a .

Progressives and democratic socialists had a strong showing in New York's primaries on June 23, where they swept deeper-pocketed rivals with a fraction of the financial support.

Named after New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, a social democrat, the Mamdani movement has found success mobilizing younger voters and tapping into working-class economic anxieties.

Gonzales raised only a tenth of the campaign finances that Hickenlooper had, according to public records. And Hickenlooper declined requests for a debate.

By highlighting his progressive accomplishments while at the same time staying true to his centrist leanings, Hickenlooper was able to successfully thread the needle.

Hickenlooper and Gonzales split the vote in Denver, the home base of each candidate. Hickenlooper, however, maintained a double-digit lead across most of the rest of the state, except for Adams County and some counties in southern Colorado, where his lead was in the single digits.

After two terms as Colorado governor, Hickenlooper had statewide name recognition in his favor. And he has championed rural causes during his first term in the Senate, noted Ken Salazar, a former U.S. Senator who spoke in support of Hickenlooper Tuesday night.

In his 2020 presidential run, he opposed "Medicare for All" and a national fracking ban, causes that Gonzales champions.

Among the groups that endorsed Hickenlooper are End Citizens United, League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance.

Gonzales received endorsements from Oil Change Action, the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, GenZ for Change and Faith in Colorado.

Labor unions divided up their support among the two candidates.

The winner of Tuesday's primary will face Mark Baisley, the de facto Republican nominee who ran unopposed.

A Colorado Republican has not held a Senate seat since Hickenlooper defeated Cory Gardner in the 2020 election.

Now she lives in a Denver House district that has become a chronic Democratic battleground. Smith and her husband receive more mailers on some days than she put out during her entire campaign, which cost $36,700 in today’s money. The race to represent her, in one of the safest Democratic seats in Colorado, has now surpassed $1.2 million in total spending.

The eye-watering total almost certainly means that, heading into Tuesday’s primary, the fight for House District 6 between Rep. Sean Camacho and challenger Iris Halpern is the most expensive House primary in Colorado history.

“It’s scary, right now, to think that we’re going to waste that money, at this time, on these stupid attacks, when there’s so much work that needs to be done,” said Smith, 71, who lives in Lowry.

She sighed, remembering how much her unsuccessful Democratic challenge against Owens, the incumbent state representative and future governor, had cost. “Think about it. What could we have in this district that we don’t have now,” she asked, if the money were spent elsewhere?

When House District 6 was redrawn in the 2022 redistricting effort, it was for Democrats, or any party for that matter. But the seat has been less a comfortable sinecure than the legislature’s most expensive see-saw: In the three election cycles since redistricting, it has played host to three Democratic primary contests.

The district, which extends east from Capitol Hill all the way to the Aurora border, has become a proxy battlefield in an ongoing war between competing financial and ideological interests in the Democratic Party — one where weary voters catch volleys of mailers in the crossfire. The last three primary races in the district, including this year’s contest, have cost roughly $2.5 million in direct and outside spending, the bulk of it coming from dark-money groups backing more moderate candidates.

That’s enough to buy 7.5 million meals through the or a year’s worth of diapers for 3,425 babies through the charity.

That spending is a sign of the times, political experts say. Colorado Democrats have settled into one-party control in Colorado over the past decade, and that has meant more Democrats in the Capitol, more ideological diversity within the party — and more opportunity for infighting.

It has also meant that business interests, which once spent campaign cash in tossup districts, are looking for new places to spend their money and influence policymaking. District 6 is among the priciest of several legislative districts that have been the focus of outside spending this year. In all, roughly $3 million has been spent, largely in seven Democratic legislative primaries, by groups affiliated with One Main Street, a centrist dark-money organization that doesn’t disclose all its donors.

Colorado Labor Action, funded by the state’s major unions, has dropped more than $900,000 against One Main Street’s favored candidates in a handful of races, and other outside groups have poured in further cash.

“There has been a fundamental shift (away) from spending money in the general elections between Democrats and Republicans,” said Alec Garnett, a District 6 resident and a former Colorado House speaker. “And that money is shifting into Democratic primaries because that¶¶Ňőap where these outside interests believe that they can make a difference, in terms of the ideology of the candidates.”

This year in House District 6, Camacho, the incumbent, is a moderate Democrat seeking to fend off a progressive challenger in Halpern, an attorney. Camacho won the seat with nearly 85% of the vote in the 2024 election after beating then-Rep. Elisabeth Epps — one of the most left-wing, and controversial, lawmakers in the House — in the primary.

Epps, in turn, had won the seat two years earlier in an open race after beating a more moderate Democrat.

Why has the district become such a battleground? Part of the answer is circumstantial: The seat was open in 2022, and Epps was a magnet for criticism in 2024. Denver, Garnett said, is also the “headwaters” of the Democratic Party in the state. The voters in District 6 tend to be younger, and it’s home to some of the state’s most prominent politicians, including both U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser, who are now facing off in the Democratic primary for governor. It’s also host to the governor’s mansion and the state Capitol building.

Victory in the primary could provide a springboard for a progressive political leader, as Epps once appeared to be. A win might also help set the tone for a Democratic Party still in search of a defining identity. Epps’ victory in 2022 was part of a wave of progressive wins, and the next legislative session featured debates, with mixed results, about supervised drug-use sites, eviction protections and assault weapons bans.

But Epps’ loss in 2024, after an outburst during a special legislative session that saw her reprimanded by House leadership, came against a backdrop of more moderate victories across Democratic primaries.

For Halpern’s outside–spending supporters, beating Camacho this week would mean putting a more progressive lawmaker back into what they see as a progressive district. It would also knock out one of the leaders of the legislature’s moderate — and much-criticized — Opportunity Caucus, which Camacho co-chairs.

For the groups opposing Halpern, backing Camacho is partially a matter of defending a candidate they’d helped elect two years ago. His voting record, they’d argue, has been in line with Democrats across the Capitol and doesn’t warrant booting him from office.

Their support of Camacho is also part of their ongoing effort to keep pragmatic Democrats in office.

‘Campaign has just become about the money’

But that higher-level reasoning that’s crystallized into an avalanche of campaign literature has not been celebrated by the House District 6 residents who spoke to The Denver Post.

“I’m a pretty engaged person; I’m probably going to vote no matter what,” said Zach Robertson, who lives in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood. He said he had not voted yet but was leaning toward Camacho. “But (the spending) has me more cynical. This campaign has just become about the money — versus about the issues or campaigning on the ground.”

He’d looked at Camacho’s legislative history and his voting record, and they seemed fine for a Democrat. He didn’t buy the attack ads against Halpern, which falsely accused her of being a secret lobbyist.

And he knew there had been a split between different factions in the party, though he said he didn’t understand why it seemed to keep coming to a head in District 6.

It was much the same for William Thompson, a 37-year resident of the district who was once involved in Democratic organizing. He’s also supporting Camacho, and he questioned the integrity of the independent groups putting out mailers — which he felt were coming from interests based outside District 6.

“I can see where some people would be disgusted by the whole process and say, ‘To hell with it, I’m not going to vote,’ ” he said. ” … And I think it hurts the party, too.”

Amid all the noise, Smith, the onetime Owens opponent, said she wanted to hear about policies that would help her and her husband stay in Denver, even as they age and rely on a fixed income.

She said she’d heard both candidates speak in person and that she was supporting Halpern. She didn’t like feeling like she was the intended audience for attack ads from outside groups, especially when she wanted substance.

“Do (they) think we’re stupid?” Smith said. “There’s a part of you that wants to say, ‘OK, alright — now tell me what you’re going to do for us. What is it you’re going to do so that Colorado and HD6, the people here, can afford to live here in a great state, in a beautiful city? What are we going to do to protect that for future generations?’ ”

Drowning in negativity

The primary has been contentious. The biennial conflict’s reignition this year has sparked a mailer and advertising bonanza, most of it focused on critical messages.

Five dollars out of every $6 spent in House District 6 has come from outside groups, not from Camacho’s or Halpern’s campaigns. By law, the campaigns cannot coordinate with the outside groups that spend money in support of them.

In six days, a Post reporter who lives in District 6 received 10 mailers for or against Camacho and Halpern. Garnett said he received four mailers in one day last week.

Most of them have been attack ads: “Every mailer I get is negative,” he said.

As in 2024, Camacho is backed largely by dark-money groups tied to One Main Street, which generally supports “pragmatic” and pro-business Democrats. Halpern has received support from the PAC funded by the Colorado AFL-CIO and the Colorado Education Association.

In an interview, Camacho said he tries to run positive campaigns, including this go-round. But “one of the most frustrating parts” of the deluge of outside money, he said, is that those groups go so negative and threaten to drown out the message the candidates want to share.

He described himself as a “strong labor (and) anti-TABOR guy,” referring to the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which restricts taxes and spending in Colorado. He touted bills he’d run that sought to protect older people from financial fraud and to regulate artificial intelligence-powered chatbots.

“I’m trying to get out my message, but I can’t control what outside groups say or do,” he said. “That’s really concerning, frankly.”

Halpern told The Post that she knew the history of dark money in the district when she announced her candidacy in January. She also knew it’d be hard to outraise an incumbent.

But still, the amount of money — and how vicious the attacks have become — has shocked her.

Her , for example, launched with a video blasting Opportunity Caucus members for attending a private fundraising retreat in the mountains in October. But now it also features a banner at the bottom declaring “False accusations DISMISSED” — a reference to a complaint filed with the secretary of state’s office alleging that she’d illegally worked as a lobbyist.

As her website notes, that complaint . But an anonymous PAC continued to make the accusation in ads to voters. Earlier this month, Halpern sent the group behind it, Denver Progressives United, a cease-and-desist letter.

“It’s getting very dirty,” Halpern said. “There’s no accountability. And voters, and even I, don’t know who is donating to these dark-money groups.”

She and Camacho are both Democrats, and they would likely vote the same on bills that reach the floor of the House. But which bills reach the floor — and in what shape — is the key difference, she argued.

She criticized Camacho for the AI chatbot bill that, she argued, was “a giveaway to the richest companies in the world” because it limited monetary damages. She also knocked him for a vote he cast in committee that helped in mountain communities.

Other money-soaked races this year

If it’s any consolation to House District 6 residents, they’re not alone in being targets of so much spending.

A similar fight is spilling out of mailboxes in nearby Senate District 34, which covers the northwest corner of Denver, including part of downtown. Also considered one of the safest seats anywhere in Colorado, the District 34 Democratic primary has pulled in a whopping $1.5 million in total spending in the race between Andrés Carrera, who worked for the city of Denver, and Chela Garcia Irlando, who leads an environmental nonprofit.

The majority has come from outside dark-money groups, and most of that from One Main Street-aligned committees backing Carrera. Irlando has received substantial support from the labor PAC that’s supporting Halpern, as well as from Conservation Colorado and others.

Between the two Denver legislative districts, candidates’ campaigns and the outside groups backing them have spent roughly $3 million — enough for 9 million meals or diapers for 4,100 babies — for two seats that will almost certainly elect whichever Democrat emerges from Tuesday’s primary.

The Denver races have been by far the costliest of this primary cycle. But the labor PAC and One Main Street network have also squared off in races in Broomfield and Aurora. One Main Street has also been active in primaries for seats based in Thornton and Summit County.

While Denver’s Senate District 34 won’t have another primary election for four years, House District 6 could host another expensive primary in 2028.

In conversations with The Post, campaign operatives involved in the outside spending who declined to speak on the record expressed a hope — if not quite an expectation — that the tug-of-war over House District 6 might end after this race, regardless of who wins.

Paul Teske, a political scientist at the University of Colorado Denver, said the fighting in the primaries, in that House district and elsewhere, may change only if the money and attention are needed elsewhere.

“I think with such a weak Republican Party statewide — we’ve maybe moved from purple to solidly blue — then the fights that are left are within the blue,” Teske said of Democratic races. “So the money and the attention is going to get funneled there.”

But that might change if Republicans “put together a more competitive set of candidates across the state” that gives them a shot at winning the legislature or the governor’s office, he said.

House District 6 is full of engaged Democrats, said Rep. Steven Woodrow, who represented the seat before the boundaries were redrawn in 2022. He now represents House District 2, which includes Washington Park, and is not running for reelection. He described the primary as a microcosm of the broader moderate-vs.-progressive fight within the party.

“That rift is somewhat based on policy differences, no doubt, but it’s also largely based in approach and philosophy regarding change and operating within the system that we have,” he said.

Woodrow, who has not endorsed either Camacho or Halpern, said it made sense that outside groups who’d backed Camacho before would defend him now. They fought hard to land Camacho in the seat back in 2024. Why would they pull back the next cycle?

“I don’t begrudge folks for trying to protect the gains they feel they’ve made,” he said.

But the cost has been staggering, and voters have noticed. Two who spoke to The Post pointed out how physically large this year’s mailers have been. Others criticized their mysterious origins.

“What is wrong with us?” lamented Elizabeth Pace, a longtime District 6 resident and Democratic voter. “We have lost (our way), even in this small, liberal, progressive area of town. It¶¶Ňőap very discouraging.”

She supports Halpern but earlier backed Camacho and gave money to Epps’ 2022 opponent, Katie March. She said she resented the crush of attack ads, and she got a knot in her stomach even when she saw negative ads against Camacho.

“It’s negative to the point of, I want to put this down — I don’t want to see this anymore. I will reject the premise on its face,” she said. “That is bad. That is bad for us in this little haven that we call democracy.”

John Hickenlooper has had a storied political career. But if he wins the Democratic Party’s primary, is re-elected in November, and serves a full second term, he will be 80 years old by the end. If Diana DeGette (Colorado House District 1) follows a similar path, she will be 70 when her next term expires.

As a “Boomer,” whose age falls between these two candidates, I recognize that my mental faculties are not what they were a decade ago — and that they will only decline. We have also seen the electoral consequences of ignoring this with President Joe Biden.

Of course, age should not be the only criterion that a voter uses when evaluating the suitability of a candidate, but it should be considered. Especially since the generational differences between the Boomers and everyone younger are so stark.

If the Democrats have any aspirations to be the party of the future, they will need candidates who have a similar lived experience with younger voters.

An additional problem is that people often fail to recognize their own diminished capacity. And because most House and Senate seats are “safe,” many incumbents end up with seats for life.

Politicians who hold national office, even more so than athletes, are loath to retire for the simple reason that they will instantly go from being a “somebody” to becoming a “nobody.” Quick, who was the previous Speaker of the House?

So it is up to primary voters to ease older candidates out of office if this is warranted. There are many talented younger candidates on the Democrats’ primary ballot. Perhaps you should choose one. I have.

Guy Wroble, Denver

Michael Bennet for governor

In the Democratic primary for governor, we will be casting our votes for Michael Bennet for three reasons.

First, Michael’s career is marked by experience that will be essential for our next governor. He has been a successful businessman, led the Denver public schools through a precarious period, and now serves as Colorado’s respected U.S. Senator. This experience puts him miles ahead of other candidates.

Second, his life has been one of acting with veracity and honesty, two traits that underscore his proven record of personal integrity.

Finally, he is a committed advocate for moving all regions of our state ahead. No matter the stage in his professional career, he has demonstrated time and again that making Colorado the greatest place in America to raise a family — through affordability, excellent education, and protecting our public lands — is a number-one priority.

In many ways, Michael Bennet is a “throwback” to how political leaders used to behave and must behave again if we are to navigate the onslaught of revenge that Donald Trump seeks to wreak on our beloved state.

Michael Bennet. Experience. Integrity. Commitment. He is our choice for the Democratic primary and our next governor.

Don and Jan Smith, Denver

Scott Bottoms for governor

As an independent voter, I tire of being ignored by the two monopoly parties, so when I sent out questions to the governor candidates and received only one reply, which was from Scott Bottoms, he got my vote for governor. And though I don’t agree with him on many issues, at least he’s willing to listen and engage with voters — even those of us who don’t agree with him.

Candidates who can’t or won’t engage with us are telling us that they are inefficient or too busy and important. It¶¶Ňőap going to take innovative thinking to figure out how to engage and represent so many diverse voters, all constitutionally promised equality under the law, which includes minority rights under majority rule. If candidates don’t have the wherewithal to listen to us, then there is no way they can represent us.

Bottoms gets my vote because he is the only candidate who is respectful enough to engage with those of us whom he will represent as governor, even those of us with whom he disagrees. At least he listens before disagreeing or agreeing. These others are just talking at us.

If candidates can make themselves available for lobbyists, they can make themselves available to the rest of us. There are solutions for reaching and engaging us, but they’d have to actually listen to us in order to find out what those solutions are. It matters.

I’ve sent numerous letters and emails to Attorney General Phil Weiser over the past five years, but he can’t be bothered to respond. Five years! And I voted for him! Not making that mistake again.

Krystyn Hartman, Grand Junction

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The venue cancellations, at least two of them said to be based on security concerns with hosting the event featuring Hasan Piker, prompted outrage by the candidates. The episode also underlined broader questions as Democrats from different factions of the party debate whether figures like Piker draw in voters or risk alienating them.

Piker, a Twitch streamer who has 3 million followers on the video livestreaming platform, has tapped a young, anti-establishment audience that the Democratic Party has struggled to bring into its fold.

He’s also been the subject of sharp criticism from prominent political groups, including , for some of his most controversial comments. Those include a 2019 comment because of its foreign interventions and Piker saying he would “ every single time.” Piker has apologized for the comment about 9/11.

His provocative comments have made Piker a . But some Denver Democrats, including Melat Kiros, who is running in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District primary against U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, and state Sen. Julie Gonzales, who is running against U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, have leaned into the figure’s sphere of influence. Both share progressive political views with Piker, and Kiros identifies as a democratic socialist.

“He has a large audience of really engaged voters,” said Annie Orloff, a spokesperson for Kiros’ campaign. “I think people like to throw a lot of shade at him, but he’s really supporting these candidates and helping them.”

Orloff said the two times have overlapped with some of the campaign’s best fundraising periods.

Gonzales, who wasn’t available for an interview for this story, to discuss her platform.

Both Kiros and Gonzales were set to campaign with Piker at a rally in Denver on Sunday. The event changed locations three times after venues canceled.

The original location, ReelWorks in the Five Points, canceled the event a week ahead of time after stating that its HVAC system wasn’t working, according to an email provided to The Denver Post. According to Kiros’ campaign, the venue hosted other events that same weekend.

A Reelworks representative didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Then a backup location, the Ogden Theatre on East Colfax Avenue, pulled out two days ahead of time, citing “significant pressure and concern from the local community.”

“This decision was made purely from a security viewpoint, there was no political viewpoint or political decision around it,” Dennis Dennehy, a spokesperson for theater operator AEG Presents, told The Post.

Organizers then turned to the Stanley Marketplace in Aurora. But it also canceled the event, citing security concerns related to Piker’s appearance, according to the Kiros campaign. The Stanley Marketplace didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Piker has spoken at Yale University and the University of Chicago. He was also set to speak at South by Southwest in London until he was banned from entering the country because officials believed his presence “may not be conducive to the public good,” .

After the Kiros campaign ultimately moved the event to the steps of the Colorado Capitol on Sunday, drawing hundreds of people, Piker and Gonzales both decided not to attend. Instead, during the event and later hosted Kiros and two candidates from other states who were in town for the event on his channel.

Kiros’ campaign alleged, without evidence, that DeGette had applied pressure to compel the venues to cancel the event.

“I think it is hard to make a distinction from the folks who fund people like Diana DeGette and the people who own these venues,” Orloff said.

AEG Presents is part of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, founded by Colorado billionaire Phil Anschutz, a Republican.

DeGette’s campaign denied the allegations, saying the claim was made up.

“I can’t believe I have to say this, but it’s an absolute lie that I or my campaign had anything to do with her venue cancellations,” DeGette said in a statement. “She’s free to make her own mistakes, and campaigning with an infamous anti-semite who says he ‘hates this country’ and thinks we ‘deserved 9/11’ is a big one.”

Democrats in other states who have appeared alongside Piker have seen a mix of harsh criticism and a boost of engagement with their campaigns.

Democratic left figures like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders have also all appeared on his channel.

Other Democratic candidates — like Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser, who are running for governor of Colorado — haven’t appeared on Piker’s channel. Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Andrew Nicla said the party had no comment on candidates appearing on shows like Piker’s.

Colorado’s June 30 primary and other states’ party contests may serve as a litmus test of sorts for candidates who welcome that ideological corner of the internet.

When Politico reported that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was appearing alongside Piker in April, his opponents heaped criticism on him. But in recent polls, he in the three-way race.

Earlier this month, as primary election results rolled in, Piker celebrated the victory of a congressional candidate he had campaigned for in New Jersey, . But that same night, in California, three candidates whom Piker also supported lost their primary races.

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The district, covering Colorado Springs and its suburbs, is typically solid red. But national Democrats have marked the race to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank as demographic shifts, falling approval for President Donald Trump and fired-up liberal voters shifted the district’s rating from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican,” according to the

Crank is unopposed in the Republican primary.

Candidate Jessica Killin, a former U.S. Army captain and chief of staff to former second gentleman Doug Emhoff, is going up against Joe Reagan, a U.S. Army combat veteran who turned to the nonprofit sector after his military career, in this month’s Democratic primary.

Reagan narrowly lost the 2024 primary for the Democratic nomination and is running again.

While the 5th District is expected to be a tighter race — the notes it is one of the few House districts that has consistently moved to the left over the past three presidential cycles — it will still take work to flip a district Crank won by 14 percentage points in 2024.

Killin, 52, is banking on doing so with a “Team Normal” platform.

“People are fed up and frustrated,” she said. “They want someone who is going to stand up for their community and stop playing partisan games. Yes, I have a ‘D’ behind my name, but I hate the labels. I am Team Normal… I am exhausted by the chaos, uncertainty, partisan bickering, tribalism.”

Killin had raised for her campaign as of the end of March — outraising incumbent Crank, who had raised more than $1.3 million.

“Jeff Crank has completely failed this community,” Killin said. “He is completely out of touch…The minute he took the oath, he went full MAGA (Make America Great Again). He lost Space Command. He’s never worked to stand up to Trump for our community. He hasn’t done anything to improve cost of living — he’s made it worse… I want our government to be functional again.”

Reagan raised during the same timeframe.

He served as a senior director at two nonprofit organizations, Easterseals, which helps people with disabilities, and veterans-focused Wreaths Across America. He works at a local nonprofit, Veterans Business Outreach Centers, which helps veterans open and operate small businesses.

The 44-year-old said veteran mental health and expanded healthcare access for everyone were priorities of his, along with working toward more affordable housing, making sure every child has access to a high-quality public education and supporting labor unions.

“When you are around town and talk to people about me, most don’t think of me as the Democratic candidate for Congress,” Reagan said. “They think of me as, ‘This is the guy at the Little League field with his kids every week, the guy who helped me start my small business, the incoming president of the Rotary Club.’ That¶¶Ňőap how you inspire trust.”

Reagan said his down-to-earth approach attracts people from all political factions. His campaign headquarters is a melting pot of progressive and moderate Democrats, “recovering Republicans” and independent voters, he said.

“So often, we get voters who say they don’t like either candidate and they’re going to vote for the lesser of two evils,” he said. “And in El Paso County, that means a Republican. It¶¶Ňőap on us to put forward a candidate people want to vote for.”

Reagan said there are El Paso County voters who support Democratic issues like the county during the 2024 election, but they still vote for conservative candidates.

“It¶¶Ňőap because they distrust the Democratic Party, and you break that by being a community organizer and leader first,” Reagan said. “I’m a combat veteran, so with 100,000 veterans in El Paso County, that puts me in a place I can relate directly to so many of our friends and neighbors.”

Killin, who secured early endorsements from all of Colorado’s congressional Democrats, zeroed in on cost-of-living issues as a core tenet of her campaign.

She said she would focus on improving the affordable housing stock in the Pikes Peak region and creating policies to get first-time homebuyers into homes. She would tackle the childcare desert to address skyrocketing childcare costs, she said.

“I joke that this is not your mother’s Colorado Springs,” Killin said. “People are hungry for change and normalcy. People are feeling so exhausted by this administration and Jeff Crank’s total failure, and that¶¶Ňőap how we win this.”