The Denver Post reports that Barb Kirkmeyer held a narrow lead over Victor Marx late Tuesday night in Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial primary. As of 11:30 p.m., Kirkmeyer led Marx 40.2% to 39.4%, with about 88% of votes counted, while Scott Bottoms sat in third with 20.4%. The race was too close to call, with Kirkmeyer’s lead at about 3,600 votes.
That is the useful part: where the race stands, what still has to be counted, and why Republicans should care about more than who can light up a room, a livestream, or a comment section.
I am not pretending to be neutral here. Barb Kirkmeyer is my friend, my former fellow commissioner, and hands down the most qualified Republican candidate for governor in Colorado in decades. She knows the state budget, the legislative process, local government, water, transportation, agriculture, energy, land use, and how Colorado actually works when the cameras are off. Sorry if that sounds too “establishmenty” for the people who think governing is just yelling into a microphone like it owes you money. It is still the truth.
The Bullet Point Brief
- The Post says Kirkmeyer held a razor-thin lead late Tuesday, but the race was not called. So everyone can exhale through the nose and let the clerks finish counting before the internet starts sacrificing goats in the comments section.
- Kirkmeyer’s message was exactly what Republicans should be talking about: small businesses, shrinking paychecks, lower cost of living, fixing roads, safer communities, protecting kids, and doing it without raising taxes. Notice the theme. Governable things. Real things. Things voters actually discuss at kitchen tables.
- Victor Marx clearly energized people, including some who had not been involved in politics before. That matters, and Republicans should not sneer at it. But enthusiasm is not a substitute for executive competence. A viral video does not balance a budget.
- The Post notes Kirkmeyer is a state senator and longtime Weld County commissioner, and that her strength has long been her policy chops. That is not a liability. That is the job description.
- Whoever wins faces long odds in November against Democrat Phil Weiser, because Colorado has not elected a Republican governor in more than 20 years. Translation: Republicans do not have the luxury of treating electability like a suspicious establishment hobby.
My Bottom Line
The Colorado GOP has to decide whether it wants to win and govern, or simply hold louder therapy sessions with yard signs.
Victor Marx has brought energy. Fine. Energy matters. But governing Colorado takes more than social media followers, personal testimony, and a couple viral clips. It takes relationships. It takes experience. It takes knowing where the budget bodies are buried and which levers actually move policy instead of just making noise.
Barb Kirkmeyer is not flashy. Good. Colorado does not need flashy. Colorado needs competent. The state is expensive, overregulated, under-policed in too many places, hostile to small business, confused on energy, and run by a Democratic machine that has gotten used to governing without serious resistance. Republicans cannot counter that with a personality cult and a podcast microphone.
This primary should be a gut check. Conservatives are right to be angry. They are right to want change. They are right to distrust the political class. But anger has to become strategy, or it becomes performance art. If Republicans nominate people who cannot win, cannot govern, or cannot unite anything beyond their own fan base, they are not fighting the machine. They are handing it another term.
Barb knows how government works. That is not a sin. That is why she is dangerous to Democrats.
Source: Denver Post
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