Take back Colorado starts local: Brandon Wark on the fight ahead

By RMV Staff

As another contentious session winds toward its May 13 close, a familiar question is surfacing among voters: Can the state’s direction actually be changed — and if so, how?

In the latest episode of Unleashed, Heidi Ganahl sits down with Brandon Wark, founder of Free State Colorado and one of the most trusted voices covering the State Capitol, to unpack what just happened under the gold dome and what it means for 2026.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1va71RcfXCn6Tcq03hBRcg?si=N2g-kLW_S9u2AJs_jqSwIA 

Watch on Rumble: https://rumble.com/v78s3vw-unleashed-with-heidi-ganahl-take-back-colorado-starts-local-brandon-wark-on.html

A tough session and bigger concerns

A third-generation Colorado native, Wark launched Free State Colorado in March 2020 — right as COVID upended everything. Since then he’s tracked every session at the Capitol and built one of the state’s most-followed conservative platforms for legislative news. He’s not sugarcoating it.

Wark said the worst bill moving through the Capitol right now is Senate Bill 135 — a measure he says “would basically take away our TABOR refunds forever.” If voters approve it this November, the state would keep the money instead of sending checks in the mail, and lawmakers would decide where it goes.

“People love TABOR,” Wark said. “Poll after poll shows the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights polls higher than most of our politicians.”

Wark also flagged a growing reliance on fees rather than taxes — a workaround that lets lawmakers raise revenue without asking voters. Wark singled out Senate Bill 155, which would place a new fee on insurance companies to fund home-hardening grants — roofs, wildfire mitigation and similar upgrades — with the stated goal of eventually lowering homeowners insurance rates.

“It’s insane to say we’re going to tax insurance companies, we’re going to put a fee on insurance companies, and that’s what’s going to lower insurance prices,” Wark said. “It’s so backwards, it doesn’t make sense.”

Why employers are leaving

Why are employers leaving Colorado? Wark blames taxes and a hostile regulatory climate. A recent Colorado Polling Institute survey found most Coloradans — regardless of party — think they’re being overtaxed. A Chamber of Commerce report documented a string of businesses that have pulled out of the state.

A letter from business leaders and tech companies, referenced in the Denver Post on the day of the recording, warned the governor and state legislature that employers are leaving because of fees, regulations and an unfriendly business climate.

“People are going to vote with their pocketbook,” Wark said. “We know that’s the number one driver — affordability, better employers, better opportunity, the lack of being able to buy a house.”

A reality check for 2026

Much of the political oxygen in Colorado is being spent on statewide races — governor, attorney general, U.S. Senate. But Wark argues the fastest route to change runs through the state legislature.

First, the statewide math. “How on earth do we convince 500,000 voters in Colorado to either show up or vote differently than they did before?” Ganahl asked. About 300,000 of those are Republicans who didn’t bother returning their ballots. Another 200,000 would have to come from voters who lean Democrat — including unaffiliated voters who, Ganahl said, mostly vote Democrat but register independent out of frustration with party labels.

Flipping a statewide race at that scale is brutal. Flipping a state Senate seat is not.

Legislative races are a different story.

Wark ticked off the recent margins: Senate District 3 in Pueblo decided by 1,700 votes. Senate District 11 in Colorado Springs by 2,200. Senate District 15 in Loveland by 1,014. Senate District 21 by about 1,400 votes in 2024 — and that one’s up again this November after Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet resigned in February.

“A couple hundred thousand dollars in four state Senate seats could dramatically change the composition of our state government,” Wark said, “and all of a sudden doesn’t matter as much who the governor is because the legislature is going to be tempered and not necessarily be pushing such radical legislation.”

As an example, he cited Senate Bill 43, the gun barrel registration bill, which cleared the Senate by just three votes.

The congressional picture

“That’s a bunch of malarkey,” Ganahl said of the assumption that Colorado’s four Republican-held U.S. House seats — especially CD4 and CD5 — are safe.

Her concern covers the full delegation: Jeff Hurd in CD3, Jeff Crank in CD5, Lauren Boebert in CD4 and Gabe Evans in CD8.

Take CD4, her home district. Once R+23, it’s now R+9 after a 10- to 15-point swing toward Democrats over recent cycles. CD3 and CD5 both look weaker than their reputations — each is R+5. And CD8 is a dead heat.

Evans won CD8 by 2,449 votes in 2024 — a margin Wark called razor-thin given the district’s profile. He expects CD8 to draw some of the heaviest outside spending the state has ever seen.

“CD8 is the ultimate battleground at the nationwide level,” Wark said. He recalled the mailer saturation of the 2024 cycle — three or four in the box most days — and said 2026 will be worse.

Ganahl framed the stakes beyond Colorado. “If we don’t have the money and the ground game and the passion to keep those folks in their seats, not only does it hurt Colorado, but it hurts America.”

Wark’s recommendation for listeners looking to plug in: donate to or volunteer for your incumbent congressional Republican first, then look at state Senate and state House races as the next layer.

The ground game

Wark and Ganahl kept coming back to the same point. Change in Colorado starts at the precinct level — with neighbors, volunteers and the people willing to knock on doors.

In 2024, Wark rounded up a group of fellow libertarians in northern Colorado and door-knocked for State Rep. Ryan Gonzalez. He thinks any five or six committed neighbors can do the same. Reach out to a campaign. Throw a backyard barbecue for a local candidate. Start a Facebook group or post on Nextdoor. None of it requires permission.

“If we all did our small little piece, then that big puzzle’s going to be solved come November,” Wark said. “We all got to take a corner, we all got to find our little pieces of the puzzle we’re willing to put together. And if we all do that and really focus at the local level, we could turn this whole state around.”

The challenges ahead

The episode did not gloss over the obstacles. Wark and Ganahl discussed the fundraising gap between Republicans and well-funded Democratic campaigns, a media landscape that often frames conservative candidates unfavorably, and internal divisions within the state GOP — including what Ganahl described as a rocky recent Republican assembly.

Ganahl knows the stakes firsthand. In her 2022 run for governor, she got outspent $33 million to $4 million — and she warned candidates not to burn through their cash in the primary.

“You can’t outwork the money,” she said.

Wark agreed. Even with social media in the mix, reaching hundreds of thousands of voters still takes real money — especially when the mainstream media is working against conservative candidates, he said.

But he’s still optimistic. More Coloradans are activated right now than he’s seen in a long time, and more of them want to volunteer.

“I know there’s a lot of people out there, more people probably than we’ve seen in a long time, who are activated, who want to get involved, who want to volunteer, who want to have a voice,” he said. “It’s just up to people like us and you watching this that are going to be the ones to find those people, get them engaged, and give them a place and a role and say, ‘Hey, we can do this.'”

How Colorado gets there

What comes next in Colorado won’t be glamorous. It’ll be ballots returned and neighbors talked to and state Senate races flipped by a thousand votes at a time.

Wark’s advice to anyone looking to plug in: start local.