June 05, 2026 09:53 AM UTC

One Of Them Is Your Next Governor

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• by: Colorado Pols

Last night, the two candidates vying for the Democratic nomination and thus in all likelihood the final choice to be the next governor of Colorado, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and state Attorney General Phil Weiser, met in the highest-profile televised debate of the 2026 primary campaign. As local reporter Owen Swallow kicks off our roundup writing for the Aurora Sentinel today, much like the somewhat anticlimactic debate in the red-hot CO-08 Democratic primary, the two Democrats have more in common than either of them care to admit:

Colorado’s two Democratic candidates for governor, Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser, traded barbs and underscored how they aligned on many policies during their second formal debate leading up to the June 30 Democratic primary election…

[S]hadowing the debate was recent polling news showing that Weiser, once the underdog in the race with little name recognition has closed in on Bennet. Polling from Onsight shows that Weiser would receive 30% of the vote today and Bennet would receive 36%, showing a vast improvement for the Weiser campaign. The vast majority of potential voters in the primary race are undecided, the poll shows.

As Chase Woodruff reports for Colorado Newsline, the objective for each candidate was to demonstrate a meaningful difference from the other despite broad general alignment on the issues:

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser broke little new ground during the debate, hosted by 9News at the University of Denver, as each again reprised the major themes of their campaigns — Bennet touting his “vision for the future” and plans to tackle Colorado’s affordability crisis, and Weiser promising to accomplish many of the same goals by being a “fighter” fluent in the inner workings of state government.

Bennet, who has served all or part of four terms in the Senate since he was appointed to his seat in 2009, said he entered the governor’s race last April, three months after Weiser, because he “didn’t see a candidate with an agenda” equal to the state’s challenges…

Weiser, however, argued that just as Bennet’s experience in Washington suits him for a leadership role in the Senate if Democrats take back Congress in November, his own eight-year tenure as attorney general has prepared him to take over as the state’s chief executive.

One of Sen. Michael Bennet’s biggest political liabilities in this Democratic primary is his votes to confirm a number of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, some of whom have proven spectacularly inimical to the state’s best interests like Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and factually-challenged Energy Secretary Chris Wright. As Ernest Luning reports for the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog formerly known as the Colorado Statesman, Bennet defended those votes as an example of the necessary realpolitik he’s skilled in:

Asked whether he still stands by his votes for specific Trump nominees, including Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, Bennet said he did, citing what he called “the reality” that “Colorado and the American West are going through an existential fire crisis, and we need the resources that the Forest Service is bringing to bear in Colorado.”

“The easiest vote in America is to vote against one of Donald Trump’s nominees, but when it’s the right thing to do for Colorado, when it’s the right thing to have the resources that we need and the attention that we need, I’ve done that,” Bennet said.

The response from AG Phil Weiser highlights his dozens of successful lawsuits beating back the Trump administration’s campaign of revenge against the state:

Weiser, who has touted the dozens of lawsuits he’s filed against the Trump administration since the Republican took office again last year, said that Democratic attorneys general were better prepared to counter Trump during his second term. That stands in contrast, he added, with what he charged is Bennet’s business-as-usual approach in the Senate, a characterization Bennet denied.

Via Colorado Public Radio’s Bente Birkeland, the pitch from each that they are the best choice to keep base Democrats invested in blue-state politics:

Bennet said he agrees that Democrats are becoming less popular.

“I think it’s a tragedy that we lost two national elections to Donald Trump and we need to get our act together and here in Colorado, I believe this state really is a purple state in its spirit and it needs a governor who’s going to govern the entire state,” he said. “Republican or Democratic or unaffiliated. People are really impatient with the parties. In fact, people my kids’ age hate the parties and they don’t believe that they’re standing for them, and I think the Democratic Party and the Republican Party both have a lot of work to do.”

Weiser said people have to know you care about them.

“For too many people, the Democratic Party doesn’t show up, listen and fight for you. The view across Colorado, particularly rural communities, working class communities is I don’t see you maybe other than election time. For me, this has been a challenge since I started running for office. I’ve gone to every single county in Colorado, all 64 counties, and I’ve gone there again and again,” he said.

The limited polling that’s been done in this race has generally showed Sen. Bennet benefiting from his superior name ID. The “vast improvement” for Weiser in the latest poll referenced above is complicated by the fact that these were two different poll companies’ numbers. With that said, it’s natural and expected that this race tightens as advertising ramps up and voters tune in. It should go without saying that the contrast between these two qualified and competent leaders and the jaw-dropping freak show voters witnessed in the Republican gubernatorial debate this week is beyond immense, crossing into the objectively absurd.

With that, we’ll turn the assessment of who won and who’s winning over to the readers who know best (that’s you).