July 01, 2026 02:37 PM UTC

Beyond the Headlines: Takeaways From a Wild Primary Election in Colorado

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• by: Colorado Pols

One of the more interesting Primary Elections in recent memory concluded – for the most part – on Tuesday night. While we wait to see whether Republican Victor Marx or Barb Kirkmeyer gets to lose to Democrat Phil Weiser in the race for Governor, let’s take a look beyond the headlines at what we learned from a very busy Primary season. 

Donald Trump Created This Moment

Trump’s re-election in 2024 both terrified and frustrated Democrats in Colorado. That energy needed an outlet, but the persistent ineptitude of Colorado Republicans meant that activists had to find somewhere else to put their time. Progressives focused their ire in places where they could make a difference; in Colorado, the real action is now in the Democratic Primary. The anti-incumbent sentiment that we saw in Colorado on Tuesday may be difficult to sustain in 2028 when the focus will be on getting a Democrat into the White House.

Fundamentals Still Matter

Yes, there was a progressive shift in Colorado on Tuesday, though it was largely confined to Denver. But the big takeaway is much simpler: campaign fundamentals still matter.

There are a lot of reasons why Melat Kiros ousted 30-year incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in CO-01. DeGette had been sleepwalking through re-election after re-election for years; she was undoubtedly the weakest Member of Congress in Colorado; and her decades-long insistence on refusing to endorse other Democrats in Colorado came back to bite her in the ass when she needed help herself. Kiros, meanwhile, ran a very good campaign that captured and focused the energy of her supporters in a manner that DeGette couldn’t match. If you watched any election coverage on Tuesday night, you might have seen images from a sparsely-attended campaign watch party for DeGette in which a handful of elderly supporters shuffled around in the background. That image spoke volumes.

Contrast the Kiros campaign with that of challenger Julie Gonzales in the U.S. Senate race. As we’ve discussed before, Gonzales ran a terrible campaign against incumbent Sen. John Hickenlooper. Gonzales raised about $1 million but spent all of it on overhead, staff, and consultants, failing to save enough for even a modest media buy. She also spent most of her time in Denver rather than venturing out to populated areas such as Jefferson, Arapahoe, and El Paso counties. Gonzales outperformed Hickenlooper in Denver but got crushed everywhere else. Hickenlooper, meanwhile, spent his warchest on solid advertisements portraying him in an energetic mood campaigning all over the state.

Republican Victor Marx pissed away what should have been an easy win in the race for Governor because he expended resources on fundraising, family, and merchandise. Marx significantly outraised fellow Republicans Barb Kirkmeyer and Scott Bottoms but used very little of that money on paid media. Marx is learning the same lesson as Gonzales: you can’t win an election with social media posts alone. 

On the Democratic side for Governor, Phil Weiser hammered a solid and consistent message and was visible everywhere for the last 18 months. Michael Bennet and a supportive IEC spent millions more than Weiser on paid media, but Bennet never articulated a good message about why Democrats should choose him as their nominee. Bennet began this race with a massive name ID advantage that his campaign seems to have mistook for support. 

Polis Was a Problem

It tough to say how much Gov. Jared Polis hurt other well-knownDemocrats (such as DeGette and Bennet), though it’s fair to say that his baffling decision to grant clemency to election denier Tina Peters exacerbated Democratic frustration with incumbents in general. The invisibility of Polis in the 2026 Primary was an underappreciated story; it’s strange for an outgoing two-term Governor to be so toxic within his own party. 

Denver is…Different

Left-wing Democrats and Democratic Socialists had a good night on Tuesday, in part by helping to drastically increase the participation of younger voters (18-34) after that group generated only 8% of the electorate in the 2024 Primary Election. It also must be said, however, that the far-left picked the lowest-hanging fruit available, with most of their wins coming in Denver.

Julie Gonzales is a prime example here; as we noted earlier, she performed well in Denver but got crushed everywhere else in Colorado. Her focus on Denver meant more to people like Chela Garcia Irlando in SD-34 than it did for her own electoral prospects.

Republicans Still in Weird Place

Colorado Republicans don’t yet know who will be at the top of their ticket, but the answer is bad either way. Cajun Karate Master and obvious grifter Victor Marx…or Barb Kirkmeyer, a woman who literally voted in favor of breaking up Colorado during the 2013 secession fight. Kirkmeyer is objectively less terrible than Marx, but in no way is she anything close to a moderate candidate (as Kirkmeyer herself said repeatedly over the past few months). 

State Rep. Scott “Rock” Bottoms somehow earned 20% of the vote in the race for Governor despite being a completely inept candidate fueled by absolute nonsense declarations – including his bizarre claim that he had “uncovered” three different pedophilia rings at the State Capitol. More than 6 in 10 Colorado Republicans saw the lunacy of Marx and Bottoms and said to themselves, “That sounds good.” Perhaps it should be no surprise, then, that David Willson – a former attorney for Tina Peters – received 40% of the vote in the race for Attorney General despite doing basically nothing in terms of campaigning. 

Republicans tried to prop up less-crazy candidates in the state legislature with mixed success, highlighted by former Rep. Terri Carver hammering nutball State Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson in SD-9. 

One of the biggest losers of the Primary Election is an Evergreen inclusion: Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. The “no-compromise gun rights” goofballs at RMGO failed once again to enact electoral vengeance against perceived Republican enemies. The group made a big deal of going after Rep. Anthony Hartsock in the 2026 legislative session and recruited Bob Davis as a challenger in HD-44 (Parker); Hartsock easily retained the GOP nomination by a 16-point margin. In HD-60, Amy Parks pummeled RMGO-backed candidate Nancy Rumfelt by 30 points. 

Mythical Hispanic Vote Shows Up

We’ve long heard talk about a strong Hispanic vote in Colorado, but that mythical voting bloc hasn’t really shown up in a significant way until now. It’s not a surprise that Democrat Manny Rutinel defeated Shannon Bird in CO-08, but Rutinel walking away with a nearly 30-point victory was an eyebrow-raising result. 

In the Democratic Primary for Secretary of State, neither Amanda Gonzalez nor Jessie Danielson raised much money and thus weren’t able to communicate to a broader group of voters. It’s hard to see another reason beyond the Hispanic vote as to why Gonzalez ended up winning that race by an astounding 28 points. 

Dwayne Romero

Keep an eye on the new Democratic nominee for Congress in CO-03. Romero didn’t enter the Democratic Primary until March, literally hours before the filing deadline, yet he ended up nearly earning top-line through the caucus/assembly process and ended up beating Alex Kelloff by 10 points on Tuesday. Dwayne Romero clearly has a built-in base of support in the sprawling third district; if he can raise the money, he’s a real threat to incumbent Republican Rep. Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd. 

Odds and Ends

Democrat Jillaire McMillan emerged from a three-way Democratic Primary in HD-19 (Longmont-ish) to set up a rematch with Republican Rep. Dan Woog. McMillan lost to Woog by just 110 votes in 2024; with a Blue Wave at her back in 2026, the outcome may be much different this time around. 

In Jefferson County, longtime Democratic elected official Andy Kerr beat back a challenge from Sue Flageolle in the race for County Assessor. Despite being a registered Republican as recently as a year ago, Flageolle received strange levels of support from activist Democrats in Jeffco. Had Flageolle won, it would have opened the door for other Republicans to change their party affiliations in order to win elected office in Jefferson County.