Colorado state Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer announced her 2026 run for governor Tuesday.

Kirkmeyer, a 66-year-old Weld County Republican, currently serves on the powerful Joint Budget Committee in the Colorado Legislature. She ran to represent Colorado’s 8th Congressional District in 2022.

“Colorado is ready for a new direction,” Kirkmeyer said at a campaign launch event Tuesday in Fort Lupton. “It’s ready to chart a new path. It’s ready for a common sense conservative leader who will roll up her sleeves, work with people, and deliver real results, not play political games.”

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Before she was first elected to the state Senate in 2020, Kirkmeyer served as a Weld County commissioner, when she helped lead a plan among several northern Colorado counties to secede from the state. She lost her bid to represent the 8th District to Democrat Yadira Caraveo by less than a full percentage point.

As a member of the JBC, she is heavily involved in crafting the state’s budget each year and is typically a bipartisan sponsor of many budgetary bills. She also sponsored a bipartisan measure this year that reformed Colorado’s process for filling vacancies in the Legislature, and she touts her work on major property tax cuts during the 2024 legislative session.

Colorado is ready for a new direction ... It's ready to chart a new path. It's ready for a common sense conservative leader who will roll up her sleeves, work with people, and deliver real results, not play political games.

If elected, Kirkmeyer said she would defend Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which restricts state tax revenue collection and spending, and ensure taxes are not raised. She criticized the Legislature’s most recent special session, which she said “was not a special session about fixing the budget” but was “about increasing taxes.” She also wants to see the state support small businesses “without government red tape.”

Colorado Republicans supporting Kirkmeyer at her campaign kick off included state Representatives Carlos Barron of Fort Lupton, Ryan Gonzalez of Greeley and Dan Woog of Erie, as well as state Senator Byron Pelton of Sterling and Colorado State Board of Education member Yazmin Navarro.

Democratic Governor Jared Polis, who has been in office since 2019, is term-limited in 2026. U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser are running on the Democratic side of the race. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will be favored to win the general election. Colorado hasn’t had a Republican governor since Governor Bill Owens left office after the 2006 election, and Polis won reelection in 2022 by nearly 20 percentage points.

‘A different vision for Colorado’

Kirkmeyer is loyal to Republican President Donald Trump, “not Colorado families,” Ben Waldon, Bennet’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

“She backed Trump’s reckless bill that will strip health care from tens of thousands and shut down Colorado rural hospitals and nursing homes, and she’s all in on Trump’s economic agenda, already a disaster for Colorado families, workers, and small businesses,” Waldon said, referring to the GOP’s domestic policy megabill, which Trump signed in July.

Weiser said Kirkmeyer tried to stop him from “defending our state” against Trump administration policies, but he welcomed her to the race and said he looks forward to “a debate about the values and leadership Colorado needs and deserves in this moment.”

“I have a different vision for Colorado — focused on freedom and opportunity for all — and will fight hard for it,” Weiser said in a statement.

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib said Kirkmeyer is “eager to please” Republican party donors and blasted her defense of Colorado Republicans in Congress for supporting the Republican megabill.

Other prominent Republican candidates who have announced a run for governor include state Senator Mark Baisley, state Representative Scott Bottoms, former U.S. Representative Greg Lopez and Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell, among several others. Kirkmeyer said her experience leading a state agency under Republican Governor Bill Owens, as a county commissioner, and as a member of the JBC sets her apart from other Republican candidates in the race.