Political Sheet

Colorado GOP Primary Voters Pick November Trouble

1 hour ago
by Scott K. James
3 min read
Victor Marx in a Colorado GOP primary editorial collage with campaign and ballot imagery
Primary applause is not the same thing as November math.
Written by Scott K. James

Complete Colorado’s Ari Armstrong says Victor Marx’s narrow GOP primary win exposes a Colorado Republican habit: nominating for the room, not November.

Complete Colorado’s Ari Armstrong delivers a blunt post-primary diagnosis: Colorado Republicans had a chance to nominate a candidate built for a statewide general election and instead chose Victor Marx, who won the GOP primary with 208,350 votes, about 5% of Colorado’s active voters. Marx edged Barb Kirkmeyer by just 2,414 votes, while Scott Bottoms finished a distant third and has said he will not support Marx.

Armstrong’s larger complaint is about the primary system, including semi-open primaries and winner-take-all results that can elevate a major-party nominee with support from a tiny slice of the electorate. Fair enough. But rules do not fully explain a Republican electorate that keeps mistaking emotional release for political strategy.

The Bullet Point Brief

  • Marx won the Republican nomination with fewer than 15% of all gubernatorial primary ballots cast and about 5% support from active Colorado voters. That is less a statewide mandate than a crowded-room applause line.
  • Kirkmeyer lost by 2,414 votes despite being described in the column as the experienced, credible option. GOP voters apparently looked at electability and decided it sounded suspiciously like compromise.
  • Bottoms has refused to back Marx, while some of his supporters reportedly began alleging fraud without evidence. Nothing says “ready to govern Colorado” like turning a primary loss into a Facebook comments section.
  • Armstrong argues approval voting, ranked-choice voting or a party-free primary might better capture voter preferences. Maybe. No voting system, however, can make a party stop rewarding candidates who thrill the club meeting and frighten the general electorate.
  • The likely result is a general-election disaster that hurts not only Marx but Republicans further down the ballot. Democrats may have brought the gasoline, but Colorado Republicans keep volunteering to hold the match.

My Bottom Line

This is not a Democrat rescue mission. Colorado Democrats remain the main arson crew torching affordability, energy, local control, crime policy and whatever scraps of common sense survived the last legislative session. They have earned a serious opposition.

What they keep getting is a broken fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. Technically present. Emotionally reassuring to a few people. Completely useless once the building starts smoking.

Colorado Republican primary voters too often treat elections as purity rituals, revenge hobbies and opportunities to punish anyone who understands the state as it actually exists. They nominate for applause inside the room, then act betrayed when suburban families, unaffiliated voters and normal conservatives decline to join the cosplay.

Regular liberty-minded Coloradans deserve better than loser math, internal holy wars and candidates engineered to dominate a narrow primary while collapsing in November. Democrats do not have to destroy the Colorado GOP. Primary voters keep walking it behind the barn themselves.

Source: Complete Colorado

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