Victor Marx wins Colorado GOP nomination after tight primary race

Colorado’s Republican governor primary was called on July 9, five days after Election Day, with Victor Marx at 39.9% of the vote, state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer at 39.4% and state Rep. Scott Bottoms at 20.8%. Marx won the nomination after a vote count that stayed unsettled for more than a week and left him ahead by only about 2,000 ballots at one point.

Marx, a first-time candidate, is the GOP’s standard-bearer in an open race created by term-limited Gov. Jared Polis. Phil Weiser, who won the Democratic primary, will face Marx in November, giving Colorado a general election matchup between two candidates who emerged from sharply different political lanes.

Marx entered the race with a public identity built on biography and ministry work rather than elected office. He is a Marine Corps veteran and the founder of All Things Possible Ministries, founded in 2003 in Colorado Springs. The ministry says Marx was subjected to physical and sexual abuse as a child, including being molested at age 5 and left in a commercial cooler, and that his early years involved repeated moves and school changes.

Marx’s biography and ministry work helped cultivate a hardened outsider image in a Republican field that split between a more traditional establishment figure in Kirkmeyer and an insurgent candidate with a devoted social-media following.

Colorado’s ballot-curing and late-reporting process kept the race undecided for more than a week, giving Marx a narrow lead that fluctuated before the final tabulation settled the outcome.