Before you return your ballot: What you get to decide, and what’s already decided.

By RMV Staff

Ballots are already coming back across Colorado, but many voters are still making up their minds.

Since January, RMV has followed candidates from campaign launches and candidate forums to assemblies, debates and ballot qualification fights. Before you return your ballot, here’s what stood out.

The race that could end a 24-year streak

For Republicans, the governor’s race is the biggest decision on the ballot. It has also been a losing one for a long time. No Republican has won the governor’s office since Bill Owens in 2002. Democrats have held it ever since, through Ritter, Hickenlooper and two terms of Polis.

Barb Kirkmeyer, Scott Bottoms and Victor Marx are asking Republican voters for the chance to end it.

RMV asked all three candidates the same questions, among them the budget shortfall, party unity, the closed-primary fight and what they’d do in their first 100 days. Kirkmeyer and Bottoms also participated in separate follow-up interviews built around their records and public statements. Marx did not respond.

Kirkmeyer says the job needs someone who has governed. Bottoms says Republicans have spent too much time compromising. Marx argues Colorado has tried politicians long enough.

RMV’s review of 9News’ Republican and Democrat gubernatorial debates earlier this month found something few voters would expect: all five candidates agreed Colorado has become harder to afford, harder to build in and harder to keep businesses in.

But when the discussion turned to TABOR, the shortest answers of the Democrat debate followed.

Both candidates were asked: “Yes or no, do you support the ballot measure taking TABOR refunds away for the foreseeable future?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

There was no disagreement or discussion. Republicans took the opposite position.

The two debates reflected different realities. Republicans spent their night arguing over who could finally end the drought. Democrats spent theirs defending nearly two decades in power and asking for four more years.

Two Republicans. Two visions for the attorney general’s office.

The attorney general race offers Republican voters a choice between two different visions for the office.

El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen built his campaign around public safety, arguing that crime has become a cost-of-living issue for Colorado families through higher insurance rates, retail theft and the fentanyl crisis. In his interview with RMV, Allen pointed to reductions in motor vehicle theft in his judicial district and argued the attorney general’s focus should return to holding criminals accountable and serving Colorado families.

David Willson entered the race shortly before assembly after a career that included military service, national security law and cybersecurity work. His campaign centers on election integrity, constitutional review and what he sees as a need for the attorney general’s office to pursue investigations more aggressively and focus less on political disputes.

The race also comes as Republicans debate the future direction of the attorney general’s office after years of litigation against the Trump administration and growing questions about priorities inside the Department of Law, issues RMV examined in its reporting on Weiser’s record.

The rest of the statewide ticket

State Sen. Mark Baisley ended his gubernatorial campaign in January and entered the U.S. Senate race, arguing that many of the affordability pressures facing Colorado originate in Washington rather than Denver. When RMV interviewed Baisley after his announcement, he said he was “very concerned about how younger folks are able, or not able, to buy their own homes.” He tied those pressures to federal spending and inflation.

James Wiley cleared the secretary of state field at the Pueblo assembly, taking more than 70 percent of the vote as the only candidate to advance. RMV profiled his path from a missionary childhood in Kazakhstan to six years working Colorado election cases—the experience behind his pitch to scrap voting machines and hand-count paper ballots.

Kevin Grantham, the former Senate president, took more than 85 percent of the delegate vote unopposed. His pitch is about size. At the Durango forum he pointed to the treasury’s own payroll—32 full-time employees when Dave Young took over, 70 now—as the kind of growth he says taxpayers can’t keep funding.

The fight for the legislature isn’t over

The governor gets the headlines. The legislature writes the laws.

This year, 86 of the 100 legislative seats are on the ballot—all 65 House seats and 21 of the 35 in the Senate. Democrats hold both chambers, 43-22 in the House and 23-12 in the Senate.

Legislative races may not draw the same attention as the statewide contests, but they’re hardly settled. Twenty-three legislative districts drew a contested primary this year. Ten of them are Republican races.

RMV’s review of the 2026 session found the same divides surfacing again and again—over who controls local decisions, how the state spends and whose rights win out, from election law to parental rights. Citizens signed up to testify, waited hours for three minutes at the microphone and watched many votes fall along familiar party lines.

Eleven lawmakers on the ballot first reached the Capitol through the vacancy process rather than election. Two of them face a Republican primary: Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson in Senate District 9, against former state Rep. Terri Carver, and Rep. Ava Flanell in House District 14, against Troy Vanderhule. For both, June 30 is the first time voters get a say.

Two Republican candidates RMV profiled this spring are already looking toward competitive November races.

In House District 59, Naomi Riess is challenging Democrat Rep. Katie Stewart in a Southwest Colorado district decided by roughly three points in 2024. After years working in land-use planning, mediation and local government, Riess says Southwest Colorado’s voice has gone unheard in Denver. She has built her campaign around what she calls “healthy communities”—safer streets, attainable housing and stronger local decision-making.

In Senate District 25, Rich Guggenheim is challenging appointed Democrat Sen. William Lindstedt. Guggenheim entered the race after local Republicans asked him to run for a seat others had declined to pursue. The former agriculture official said it was “time to walk the talk” and has centered his campaign on government spending, election confidence and slowing what he sees as the growing reach of state government.

The arguments didn’t end at adjournment. They moved to your ballot.

Who is actually voting

The electorate returning ballots so far is an older one. Through the night of June 18, nearly 60 percent of the 281,674 ballots returned statewide came from voters 65 and older. Just over 8 percent came from voters under 35.

Democrats are ahead of Republicans too, 115,146 ballots to 89,625. More than 104,000 unaffiliated voters have also returned ballots.

With Republicans trailing in ballot returns, the contested GOP races will come down to who still has a ballot sitting on the kitchen counter.

Before you send it back

Colorado ballots must be returned by 7 p.m. on June 30.

A postmark does not count. Voters returning ballots during the final days of the election should use an official drop box or vote center rather than the mail.