Barbara Kirkmeyer held a narrow lead over Victor Marx as Colorado’s Republican primary for governor remained too close to call Tuesday night, with the vote at 41% to 39% at 10:30 p.m. Scott Bottoms trailed with 20%.
The race matters now because the winner will face Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser in November, and the Republican nominee will be trying to break a statewide losing streak that has lasted since 2016. If the tally holds, it would also give Republicans a nominee for governor in Colorado after the party’s last candidate for the office lost by nearly 20 percentage points in 2022.
Kirkmeyer’s edge came despite a roster of establishment backing. She was endorsed by Bill Owens, Gabe Evans and The Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs, while Marx, a 60-year-old Marine veteran and ministry leader who lives just north of Colorado Springs, ran close enough to keep the contest alive late into the night. He told reporters at his campaign’s watch party in Larkspur that he was humbled and excited by how tight the race had become.
Marx also said he would accept the result regardless of how it turned out and would support any Republican nominee, even as he argued that he would have won by a huge margin if Bottoms had dropped out. That is the fault line in this race: the endorsements and name recognition were not enough to separate the candidates quickly, and Marx’s showing made Kirkmeyer’s lead more fragile than her backing would suggest.
The winner will replace term-limited Gov. Jared Polis early next year, and the party’s next question is whether the final count leaves Kirkmeyer ahead or gives Marx enough late movement to flip the result. Either way, the vote showed a Republican electorate still searching for a path back to statewide power in Colorado.
