Colorado Public Radio just handed Colorado Republicans the kind of gubernatorial primary lineup that makes campaign consultants reach for whiskey and unaffiliated voters quietly back away from the mailbox.
One candidate says the Capitol is crawling with pedophiles and Democrats are “buying children,” but won’t publicly show evidence. Another says he was forced to help kill a man at age 7, though authorities contacted by CPR found no record to back it up. The third is a career government insider running as the adult in the room by promising she can fix the government she has spent decades inhabiting.
Congratulations, Colorado GOP. Your bench is now a true-crime podcast, a Capitol conspiracy sermon, and a Weld County budget spreadsheet in boots.
The basic problem is simple: Republicans haven’t won statewide in Colorado since 2014, and Bill Owens is the only Republican elected governor here in the past half-century. So this primary is not just about who loses to Democrats. It is about whether the nominee loses gracefully enough not to drag the rest of the ticket into the ditch like a flaming couch on I-25.
Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs pastor and state representative, says Democrats are “buying children” and that he is still pursuing “the pedophilia in this building.” He says he has evidence, but only for the FBI, because he does not trust Colorado law enforcement. That is a hell of a campaign platform: vote for me, I have proof, no you can’t see it, but trust me, the whole building is basically a Netflix crime bunker.
Bottoms also has very little legislative accomplishment to point to, by his own telling. He first said he had not passed a single bill, then remembered the “In God We Trust” license plate bill, then downplayed that too. That is not draining the swamp. That is standing next to the swamp yelling Bible verses at the mosquitoes.
Then there is Victor Marx, a political newcomer with millions of social media followers, a nonprofit ministry, combat-training energy, and a biography so cinematic it needs a stunt coordinator and a liability waiver. Marx says he was forced by his stepfather to shoot a man as a child. CPR reports local authorities in that part of Mississippi had no information on unsolved homicides from that time.
That does not mean every awful thing in someone’s childhood is false. It means running for governor is not a testimony night at a megachurch. If your origin story includes an alleged childhood homicide, voters are allowed to ask for something more solid than vibes, trauma, and podcast lighting.
Marx talks affordability, safety, energy production, immigration cooperation, fentanyl, and trafficking networks. Fine. Colorado desperately needs serious talk about all of that. But “serious” is the key word here. The state is broke-brained enough without making the governor’s race feel like a trailer for Taken: Black Forest.
And then there is Barb Kirkmeyer, the establishment favorite who does not want to be called establishment, despite endorsements from Bill Owens and John Suthers and a résumé packed with commissioner seats, state budget work, and insider credentials. She says she can whip the budget into shape in six months.
Maybe she can. She is clearly the only one in the race who sounds like she has read an appropriations bill without needing holy water or a tactical vest. But Colorado voters have heard “experienced insider will fix government” before. That pitch usually ends with another fee, another task force, and another smug explanation for why your grocery bill is actually democracy.
Here is the Colorado reality check: people are getting crushed by housing costs, utility bills, fees, crime anxiety, busted roads, and a political class that treats affordability like a branding issue. Democrats built a lot of this mess with taxes disguised as fees and compassion disguised as control. But Republicans cannot answer that with evidence-free fire alarms and autobiography theater.
Colorado needs an opposition party with a pulse, a plan, and enough discipline not to saw off its own leg on live television.
Instead, voters are getting a primary that asks: do you want the conspiracy candidate, the action-movie candidate, or the government lifer promising she knows where the budget bodies are buried? Hell of a choice, Colorado. No wonder Democrats keep winning while Republicans argue over who gets to drive the clown car into the ravine.
Source: Colorado Public Radio
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