A baseball lineup’s worth of conservative candidates for governor showed for a GOP forum this week — and that was only half of the declared field in the still-early 2026 Republican nominating contest.
But the gathering was enough to underscore the wide-open nature of the race for an office the GOP hasn’t won in 23 years. That’s a contrast to the Democratic side, which has quickly shaped up as race between two heavyweight candidates.
Over the next nine months, each Republican will look to carve out a lane apart from the many others looking to do the same, with 19 declared GOP candidates as of Friday. Some of those at the Denver Press Club’s forum on Thursday night explicitly acknowledged the prevailing agreement in the room when it came to cutting taxes and shrinking government, and all sought to help themselves stand out.
Among the nine participating candidates, state Sen. Mark Baisley laid out a vision of a government that does “very little … but what we do do, we should do well.” Political newcomer and U.S. Army veteran Joshua Griffin pitched “running the state like a business.”
And state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer called for a governor, such as herself, “who believes the state’s best days are ahead of us — not behind us.”
Greg Lopez, a three-time candidate for governor who briefly served in Congress last year, warned that “Colorado has been turned into the ugly twin sister of California by single-party rule.” Lawyer Will McBride decried “government tyranny disguised as public service” and declared “a movement to reclaim what is ours.”
In an aside, McBride alluded to a challenge Republicans likely face, whoever’s the nominee: “No Republican has raised more than (Democrats) have spent” on the race so far, he said. “So I think it’s a big problem that no one really believes a Republican can win.”
Another 10 candidates, including state Rep. Scott Bottoms, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell and Colorado Springs pastor Victor Marx — who’s newly declared — weren’t at the forum. How far any of the campaigns end up going — dependent on money, willpower and support — will play out over the next eight months, through the Colorado Republican Party’s state assembly in the spring and then the primary election in June.
The eventual winner likely will face either U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet or Attorney General Phil Weiser, the two Democrats leading that nominating race.
“It’s going to be competitive, the Republican primary,” Republican analyst Dick Wadhams said. “There’s no juggernaut.”
But Wadhams, who ran a campaign for the state’s last Republican governor, Bill Owens, added that several of the candidates at the top of the field seemed locked in the right wing of the party. He said that conspiracy theories asserting the 2020 presidential election was stolen; calls for the pardon of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted of breaching voting machines in search of fraud; and a push to end Republican participation in the state’s semi-open primary elections will make for a “minefield” when trying to court the most fervent Republicans without alienating the general electorate.
Polls show the Democrats now in control of the state — with the governor’s office (where Jared Polis is term limited) and near-2-to-1 majorities in each legislative chamber — as vulnerable as they’ve been in a decade, Wadhams said.
If the eventual Republican nominee can navigate the party base’s potentially alienating issues and appeal to the mainstream, he said, the person will have a shot. He said he thinks Kirkmeyer best fits that bill.
“While Republicans still face a drag from the anti-Trump attitudes in Colorado by unaffiliated voters,” Wadhams said, “for the first time — I think since probably 2018 or before — voters might seriously consider a Republican candidate for governor who talks to them about the issues they’re concerned about. They’re not going to be blinded by this opposition to (President) Trump.”
Most back Peters’ release
Nearly all of the candidates at the Thursday forum expressed some level of support for releasing Peters, who is in prison serving a nine-year sentence for her felony convictions. Trump has highlighted her case repeatedly, including with a recent threat of “harsh measures” if the state officials don’t release her.
Most supported an unconditional pardon without additional comment. Griffin said he’d consider commuting her sentence. Bob Brinkerhoff, a former state trooper, said “absolutely,” but he’d want to see if “she got the same kind of trial that Donald Trump did in New York,” referring to the president’s felony convictions.
Kirkmeyer didn’t say no to a pardon, but she answered with a considerable hedge: “If faced with new facts, I’d consider.”
Against a backdrop of unified Democratic control of state government for the past near-decade, moderators asked which laws the Republicans would wipe away if they could. Nearly every candidate said something different.
Brinkerhoff and Griffin targeted gun laws, with Brinkerhoff singling out this year’s Senate Bill 3, which adds requirements to buy certain semiautomatic firearms, and Griffin targeting “anything that infringes on our 2A rights.”
Lopez specified a piece of the legislative process, known as the safety clause, in wihch lawmakers can determine a bill “is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety,” and enact it immediately upon the governor’s signature — versus giving the public time to petition against its enactment.
Baisley, in the only mention of abortion during the forum, said he’d erase the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which codified a right to abortion in state law. Voters have since adopted similar protections in the state constitution.
“It puts government in the position of the creator,” Baisley said.
Kirkmeyer, later echoed by Brinkerhoff, named a law that was passed in the spring, House Bill 1312. That law explicitly protects transgender people from being “deadnamed,” or misgendered, in certain places, including schools and workplaces. It also makes it easier for people to change their gender identity and name on government documents.
Kirkmeyer called the bill part of “the war on parents.”
Concern about Trump’s call for troops in cities
On Tuesday, before a rare and rapidly assembled gathering of the nation’s top military leaders, Trump claimed the country was “under invasion from within” and suggested using “some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
Trump has already unilaterally sent National Guard units and active-duty U.S. Marines to help with domestic policing. On the same day as Trump’s speech, one Republican governor, Louisiana’s Jeff Landry, bolstered that effort by calling his National Guard to some of his state’s cities.
The GOP field on Thursday, however, said they wouldn’t invite the Pentagon to send troops to Colorado cities — though some had some caveats.
Jason Clark, a West Point graduate and financial professional who dons a red hat emblazoned with “Make Colorado Great Again” in many of his campaign videos, offered a blunt “F-bomb no” — a bit of self-censorship at a moderator’s request — to the idea.
Griffin, who served 16 combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he “would never put one of our people in the city, because we are trained to kill, not to police.” But he was open to deputizing National Guard members to help police, if necessary.
Several of the Republicans echoed Griffin. They’d call up the National Guard if necessary, but in a support role and only in emergency circumstances, or if local law enforcement was failing to keep residents safe.
“I’m very nervous about the idea of using our military domestically. However, I support our folks in blue a lot,” Baisley said, noting he’s run several failed bills recently to lift the state’s restrictions on local law enforcement working with immigration officials.
He said he’d invite military help, but only to augment local law enforcement. Allowing independent military operations in Colorado would be “a little bit dangerous,” he said.
Declared Republican candidates for governor
- State Sen. Mark Baisley
- State Rep. Scott Bottoms
- Bob Brinkerhoff
- John Brooks
- Jason Clark
- Brycen Garrison
- Stevan Gess
- Jon Gray-Ginsberg
- Joshua Griffin
- State Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer
- Former U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez
- Victor Marx
- Will McBride
- Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell
- Robert Moore
- Alexander Mugatu
- Jim Rundberg
- Daniel Thomas
- Kelvin “K-Man” Wimberly
Source: Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.
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