State Representative Scott Bottoms won the highest share of support among candidates for governor at the Colorado Republican State Assembly on Saturday.

The Colorado Springs Republican received 45 percent of the delegate vote and will get the top line on the ballot for the June 30 Republican primary election. Victor Marx won 39.5 percent of the vote and will be next on the ballot. None of the other roughly two dozen candidates qualified during the assembly.

Marx and Bottoms will likely be joined on the ballot by state Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican, who submitted petitions with the secretary of state’s office in March to appear on the ballot and did not attend the assembly. Those signatures have not yet been verified. Candidates need either enough petition signatures or at least 30 percent support at the state assembly to get on the ballot.

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Just over 2,100 Colorado Republicans gathered on the campus of Colorado State University Pueblo on Saturday for the primary candidate selection. In addition to the governor’s race, they considered the races for attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and U.S. Senate. Primary election winners will advance to the general election ballot in November.

For the attorney general race, delegates chose Michael Allen, the district attorney for Colorado’s 4th Judicial District, and Denver attorney David Willson. James Wiley, the former executive director for the Libertarian Party of Colorado, qualified for the secretary of state race and former state Senator Kevin Grantham qualified for the treasurer’s race. State Senator Mark Baisley was the only candidate to qualify for the Senate race.

But it will be an uphill battle for the party to win any of those four constitutional statewide seats. Democrats won each of those in 2022 by over 10 points and the last Republican governor elected was Bill Owens in 2002. Democrats also control both chambers of the Legislature by wide margins. The last Republican to win a statewide race was Heidi Ganahl for University of Colorado regent in 2016.

Still, the party faithful present Saturday were optimistic about Republicans’ vision for the state and see this year’s election as an opportunity to gain ground.

“This is our time to stand up for our children, and our children’s children,” U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert, a Republican running for reelection in the 4th Congressional District, told the crowd at the start of the day. “All of your answers are not coming from the federal government. It’s going to come from right here in Colorado.”

DOGE for Colorado

Bottoms, a pastor at the Church at Briargate, is in his second term in the state House of Representatives and is a leader of the far-right coalition of Republican representatives. He has sponsored unsuccessful bills regulating abortion clinics and banning transgender athletes from participating in high school sports.

“We’re going to have government transparency and accountability,” he said during his floor speech. “We’re going to DOGE the mess out of everything in this state.”

The Department of Government Efficiency is an initiative in the Trump administration to sharply reduce federal spending and downsize bureaucracy. The effort didn’t save the government anywhere near what its leader, Elon Musk, initially projected, and it has been criticized for causing massive government disruptions and even deaths.

Bottoms has raised about $110,000 during his campaign.

Marx is the founder of the All Things Possible ministry, a nonprofit organization based in Colorado Springs that funds projects against child exploitation. He is a first-time candidate and is endorsed by Boebert. He has raised nearly $620,000 since announcing his candidacy at the start of the year.

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“Colorado does not need another politician,” he said “We need a leader.”

“Businesses are leaving (the state), families are suffering and leaving, and when we’re letting criminals out but keeping a grandmother who is a Gold Star mom in prison — that’s got to stop,” he said.

Marx was referring to Tina Peters, the election denier and former county clerk convicted for her role in a 2021 election security breach in her office. A judge recently ordered a resentencing for Peters, who’s serving a nine-year sentence, and Democratic Governor Jared Polis is under pressure to grant her clemency. Marx and Bottoms have both said they would pardon Peters.

The other candidates for governor who were nominated and spoke during the assembly were Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell, Maria Orms, Teri Kear, Jon Gray-Ginsberg, Kevin Wimberly, John Brooks, Jim Rundberg, Bob Brinkerhoff and Robert Moore.

The day got off to a late start as multiple lines snaked around the Massari Arena and delegates waited to go through security and be credentialed. Business started around 11:30 a.m., over two hours later than planned. Because of the delay, the assembly voted to limit candidates’ speaking time from 10 minutes to five minutes. There were additional multi-hour delays as delegates submitted paper ballots and party volunteers counted them.

An 80-vote discrepancy between the number of delegates who scanned into the assembly and the number of votes cast threatened to derail the process until delegates voted to accept the over votes as valid. There were also prolonged grievances over whether the assembly had the authority to vote to opt out of the state’s primaries, which allow unaffiliated voters to participate in either party’s primary election. A federal judge recently ruled that the opt-out requirement — a 75 percent vote of the party’s central committee — is unconstitutionally high.

Business wrapped up around 8:30 p.m.

‘Participate in our elections’

Christa McGrew, a first-time delegate from Colorado Springs, said she got involved with the caucus and assembly process because of her mother and aunt, who are both active in the state party. Before business started, she sat waiting in the stands for them to arrive. McGrew is a Bottoms supporter, calling him experienced and approachable.

“He actually has a plan for everything,” she said.

Her top concerns as a voter this year are public safety and state funding, she said. She would like to see higher funding for education and is dismayed with the skyrocketing funding for the state’s Medicaid program.

“There’s a problem there,” she said. “There’s obviously too many people, maybe abusing the system, probably a lot of fraud.”

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The state department that oversees Medicaid, the health insurance for about 1.2 million low-income Coloradans, accounts for about one-third of the discretionary spending in the proposed state budgetcurrently being debated at the state Legislature, and Medicaid growth is a main driver in a structural deficit in state spending. The cost of administering the program is rising faster than the tax revenue the state is allowed to retain and spend under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Medicaid’s growth is due to a combination of variables including higher use and pricier medical care.

Kaye Kerr of Baca County attended the assembly as an alternate delegate. She brought enough yarn to knit two dish towels, as well as a pocket-size Bible, to keep her occupied during the hours of downtime. This is her second state assembly.

“If you are a citizen of the U.S., you should participate in our elections,” she said. “We were founded as a free nation, but we will only remain free as long as we do our civic responsibilities and elect those who should serve us.”

Kerr, an Army veteran, said she is supporting Marx because of his service in the Marine Corps and his support for President Donald Trump. She said her most important issue as a voter is immigration and wants to see “closed borders.”

Colorado Democrats met for their state assembly in March, also in Pueblo. Attorney General Phil Weiser earned top spot on the Democratic ballot for the governor’s primary race, and state Senator Julie Gonzales will be the first name in the Senate race. Their Democratic primary opponents, Senator Michael Bennet and Senator John Hickenlooper, respectively, both submitted successful petitions.