PUEBLO — In a major breakthrough for faith-based election science, Colorado Republicans spent Saturday nominating a gubernatorial frontrunner who promised to “DOGE the mess” out of state government, then immediately demonstrated the party’s signature commitment to ballot integrity by discovering roughly 80 more ballots than actual credentialed delegates and counting them anyway.
Rep. Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs pastor and one of the legislature’s most reliably apocalyptic conservatives, won top billing on the Republican primary ballot at the state assembly after pulling a little more than 45% of 2,145 votes, beating fellow pastor and political newcomer Victor Marx, who took 39%. Both men will still appear on the June 30 ballot, giving Republican voters a rare chance to choose between two different sermons about how government is evil and should be run by them.
Bottoms told supporters this was “our year,” which in Colorado Republican terms means a state party that has not won the governor’s office since 2002 has once again assembled in an arena to shout through a full public nervous breakdown and call it momentum. He promised to work with federal immigration authorities, build nuclear reactors, restore safety and security, and apply Elon Musk’s bureaucratic weed whacker to Colorado government, because nothing says competent executive leadership like yelling a meme into a microphone in Pueblo.
“We take election integrity extremely seriously,” said one official close to the vote-counting process, apparently while waving through a pile of mystery ballots because they “likely” belonged there. “The important thing is that nobody suspicious voted, unless they did, in which case they were probably on our side.”
The day reportedly featured long lines, delays, mistakes, and the kind of organizational competence usually associated with a church chili cook-off run by a militia Facebook group. At one point, a gubernatorial candidate called Kelvin “K-Man” Wimberly appeared to have no supporters present to nominate him, forcing someone from the crowd to run up and offer to nominate “this guy,” which remains the clearest and most efficient summary of the entire modern candidate-vetting process.
Around the arena, activists wore “Free Tina Peters” stickers, candidates pledged loyalty to the former Mesa County clerk convicted for helping somebody sneak into a secure voting area after the 2020 election, and conspiracy podcaster Joe Oltmann drifted through the room like a court-appointed mascot for the party’s ongoing refusal to learn a goddamn thing. Nothing says “we are ready to govern” quite like demanding prison breaks for election criminals while casually manufacturing extra ballots at your own assembly.
“This wasn’t hypocrisy,” said a consultant who has already billed three clients for explaining it. “It was a live demonstration of conservative principle: elections are fake until we’re winning them, at which point the Lord works in mysterious tabulations.”
Colorado Republicans now head toward a primary with renewed confidence, two pastors, and a process held together by lanyards, vibes, and bullshit.
Source: The Denver Post
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