Colorado will continue its trend of Democratic governors for the next four years. Wednesday evening, voters elected Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser as the state’s next chief executive. His running mate will be Jefferson County Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper.
The vote, possibly the least surprising of any on the 2026 ballot, shocked few. Republicans put up a candidate, Victor Marx, whose campaign was rocked and mocked by his regular bizarre and shocking comments. During the campaign Marx said he had once performed telephonic exorcisms. He had many more.
While Weiser made a persuasive case for himself as a two-term state Attorney General and Dean Emeritus and founder of the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado Law School, he also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
But as the campaign ends and a blueprint for the state comes into focus, besides dealing with the everyday challenges of running a state government, Weiser must also deal with a cold and sometimes even hot war President Trump has declared on the country’s blue states, among which is Colorado.
Trump has on numerous occasions threatened to withhold funds for a state water project, road maintenance projects and, more recently, natural disasters that have wreaked havoc in communities across the state.
In one of his last campaign stops—a campaign that began when he announced for Governor on January 2, 2025—he spoke with LaVozColorado and addressed a number of priorities he has outlined for the job he will begin in January 2027.
His audience for this appearance was a group of Latino business owners and entrepreneurs, many of whom are in the process of fully completing their final immigration requirements necessary for applying for citizenship.
Weiser said he will, as Governor, act in the same way that he has as state Attorney General. “I will not tolerate ICE breaking the law in Colorado.” If ICE engages in harassment, intimidation or act illegally, Weiser said, “we will hold ICE accountable.”
Under President Trump ICE agents have been involved in the fatal shootings of a number of immigrants and U.S. citizens including in Minnesota and Texas. In Minnesota, Rene Goode and former Coloradan Alex Pretti were killed when ICE agents opened fire on them. In both shootings, ICE agents have not been arrested. Weiser said his message to ICE is unequivocal: “No unfair, no illegal treatment of immigrants in Colorado.”
Weiser also pledged that Colorado authorities will “not engage in any kind of immigration enforcement including asking people about their (immigration) status,” or detaining people. Weiser’s office has filed charges against one Durango officer who violated this policy.
With more than 1.3 million Latinos now calling Colorado home—approximately 20 percent of the state’s population—Weiser assured the Aurora crowd that he would ensure that Latinos “will have a seat at the table,” meaning there will be Latino representation at the highest levels of state government.
As Weiser spoke, catastrophic flooding was deluging southwestern Colorado and pinpointing Pagosa Springs as ground zero. Roads have been washed out, and hundreds of homes have been lost leaving scores of people homeless.
The state suffered another crippling blow from the weather when the Aspen Acres wildfires scorched more than 100,000 acres just south of Pueblo. Besides Pueblo County, several neighboring counties including Otero and Huerfano were also touched.
The toll on infrastructure and people was staggering. State and federal fire officials put the toll at 850 structures and 319 homes lost in the blaze. State and federal costs for fighting the fires exceeded $100 million.
The cost for returning to normal will also be enormous. Worse, the horrific damage from flooding in the southwest part of the state may be a precursor and, with weather patterns changing, and not an anomaly. Can Colorado and its new governor meet the challenge?
“We must continue to prepare to both prevent fires to the best of our ability, respond to and limit fires and respond to emergencies like flooding. “Climate change is going to make weather patterns more challenging.” Weiser plans to have a “chief resilience officer” to work ahead and not from behind on facing the challenge.
Over the course of Weiser’s nearly two-year campaign, he visited each of Colorado’s 64 counties, many more than once. At a stop in Greeley outside of a meat packing plant, he stood with striking workers. He also visited with leaders of the Ute Mountain Ute and the Southern Mountain tribes. Both stops, he said, were important “because sometimes candidates don’t show up in all communities.”
While political races in Colorado and most of the rest of the country leaned heavily blue or toward the Democrats, Colorado’s race for chief executive was, perhaps, one of the weirdest of any state. Statements made by candidate Marx statements stood out for their striking, if not strange, candor, though many were later contested or retracted entirely.
Marx is the founder of All Things Possible Ministries. A number of Marx outlandish claims were removed from his campaign website.
Running as an independent candidate for Governor is former Republican Greg Lopez. Lopez ran unsuccessfully four years earlier as a Republican. Lopez served as a seat holder in Congress representing the state’s 4th Congressional District. He is also the former mayor of Parker.
In winning the Governor’s race, Weiser had endorsements from many of the state’s most prominent Republicans including former Weld County District Attorney and U.S. Congressman Ken Buck, former majority leader of both houses, Norma Anderson and former Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman.
Weiser’s running mate is Jefferson County Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper. Dahlkemper is a former Colorado Public Radio broadcast journalist and small business owner. She has also served on the Lakewood School District and is currently serving her second term as county commissioner. While she grew up in Chicago, Dahlkemper has a Colorado connection. She has multi-generational family in Huerfano County where she spent many of her summers growing up.
She is married to former Colorado Senate Minority leader Mike Feeley. They have a daughter, Grace.
