YOUNG GUNS: Meet the Next Generation of Colorado Republicans

By Heidi Ganahl | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

The knock on Colorado Republicans for years has been the same one: an aging bench, a shrinking footprint, a brand that can’t connect with younger voters in a state that keeps drifting left. That critique might need updating.

National polling suggests the politics of Gen Z are more complicated than either party might like to believe. Yale’s spring 2025 Youth Poll found 18-to-21-year-olds favoring Republicans on a generic 2026 midterm ballot by nearly 12 points, while 22-to-29-year-olds backed Democrats by about 6. That’s not a typo. Within the same generation, researchers found a striking political divide between its youngest and oldest voters.

But the picture hasn’t stood still. By spring 2026, Yale’s polling showed Democrats leading among both age groups, including a 23-point advantage among voters ages 18 to 22. The shifts have been particularly pronounced among young women, while the youngest men have followed a somewhat different trajectory. If anything, the findings are a reminder that Gen Z isn’t one predictable political bloc. Its loyalties are still being tested and its political identity is still taking shape.

Colorado adds its own wrinkle to this story. The state has spent two decades pulling in young, educated transplants chasing tech jobs, outdoor industry work, and remote-work flexibility, so much so that demographers coined a term for it: the “Colorado Paradox.” The state doesn’t necessarily produce more college graduates than anywhere else, it just attracts them from somewhere else, arriving already degreed and ready to work. That’s a population that skews younger and more credentialed than a lot of the country, concentrated along the Front Range in exactly the suburban and exurban districts where several of these races are being fought.

Colorado’s own bench of young Republicans doesn’t prove the national trend one way or the other. But it’s hard to look at a new crop of candidates and officials still in their twenties and thirties, running everywhere from the Front Range to the Western Slope to rural ag country, and not wonder if something is stirring here.

Jarvis Caldwell is one example. He was a communications staffer for House Republicans just a few years ago, writing other people’s talking points. His Republican colleagues in the legislature turned around in 2025 and elected him House Minority Leader. He sits on the board of a local charter school and has made school choice a centerpiece of his time at the Capitol. It’s a pretty remarkable rise from behind-the-scenes staffer to leading the Republican caucus in the Colorado House, and a reminder that the next generation of leadership doesn’t always come through the traditional political pipeline.

Ryan Gonzalez moved to Greeley and House District 50 back in middle school, so this isn’t some outsider parachuting into a district for a political opportunity, it’s someone who actually grew up there. He lost his first shot at the seat in 2022. Most candidates don’t come back from that kind of loss. He did anyway, unseating Democratic incumbent Mary Young in 2024 to flip a Weld County seat Republicans badly needed. He now sits on the Business Affairs & Labor and Finance committees, representing the community he’s called home since he was a kid.

Then there’s Teddy Collins, running for the open Senate District 4 seat Mark Baisley is leaving to run for U.S. Senate. Collins founded and runs Spartan Defense, one of the state’s largest family-owned firearms businesses, and spent five years doing unpaid advocacy work at the Capitol as Vice President of Industry Affairs for the Colorado State Shooting Association before he ever filed to run for anything himself. He’s also served as Young Republican Vice Chair. He wound up unopposed on the primary ballot after Kevin Conrad and Jennifer James both left the race, and now faces Democrat Justin Kurth in the general election. He’s bringing a different kind of résumé to politics: someone who spent years advocating on an issue before deciding to run for office himself.

Jason Bias is maybe the clearest case of campus activism turning into candidacy. While studying political science at Colorado Mesa University, he revived a dormant Turning Point USA chapter, giving young conservatives on campus a platform to organize that hadn’t existed before. He graduated in 2025, went on to become 1st Vice Chairman of the Mesa County GOP, before turning his attention to the state house. He’s now running for House District 54 on the Western Slope as a faith-based conservative, saying plainly that he wants his kids to grow up in the Colorado he did.

Dusty Johnson isn’t flashy, and that’s sort of the point. Full name Dusty Alvina Johnson, she grew up in Fort Morgan raising goats and playing soccer, cutting her teeth in 4-H and FFA long before politics entered the picture. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from Regis University with a focus on agriculture and water, which tracks exactly with her committee assignment today: Agriculture, Water & Natural Resources. She’s an incumbent seeking re-election in House District 63, representing rural interests in a state where water fights only get more intense every year. It’s unglamorous work that rural Colorado desperately needs someone young enough to still be doing twenty years from now.

Scott Shamblin might be the most literal definition of a “young gun” on this list. The second-generation Coloradan and Aurora native is just 24, turning 25, the constitutional minimum age to serve in the Colorado legislature, after the election but before he’d be sworn in.

But there’s more to his story than his age or the viral political satire videos that first got him noticed. Growing up, his family relied on food banks and had two Christmases sponsored by others. He remembers sitting in the back of his mom’s minivan as she worried about spending $20 on gas. Since then, he’s built businesses, volunteered, and helped develop organizations and communities, experiences he says shaped his belief in the American Dream.

“I believe in the American dream because I’ve experienced it,” he says.

Now he’s running to represent the Aurora community where he grew up, with a platform focused on public safety, accountability, and mental health treatment. He’s also bringing a distinctly Gen Z approach to politics, using humor and viral social media videos to challenge the legislature, with a style one outlet compared to the Babylon Bee. His race will be a test of how that combination of personal experience and unconventional communication resonates in his hometown.

And the next generation of Colorado Republican leadership doesn’t suddenly stop at 40. Carlos Barron, who turns 41 this weekend, has already risen to House Minority Whip after years of building businesses and serving in local government in Fort Lupton. Ava Flanell, 40, is a business owner, state representative, and outspoken Second Amendment advocate who brings another perspective to the Republican caucus. Both belong in the broader conversation about the party’s younger leadership.

Colorado also has two young Republicans serving on the national stage: Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, 39, and Congressman Gabe Evans, 40. Their backgrounds and approaches differ, but both are part of a younger generation of Colorado Republicans who have made the leap to Congress.

None of this adds up to a coordinated youth movement with a name and a press shop behind it, the way the NRCC runs its own “Young Guns” program for Congress. Nobody is tracking these candidates by age at the state level. But put these names next to each other and a shape starts to emerge anyway: business owners, former campus organizers, Capitol staffers, grassroots advocates, and young people who grew up experiencing firsthand the challenges facing Colorado families.

They don’t all have the same backgrounds, priorities, or paths into public service. Some are already helping lead their party at the Capitol. Others are trying to break into elected office for the first time. Some grew up in rural Colorado, others in the suburbs. And not all of them are running in districts where winning is guaranteed.

But together they raise a question that Colorado Republicans haven’t had much reason to ask in recent years: What if the party’s next generation is already here, and we just haven’t been paying attention?

Colorado has spent twenty years importing young, educated voters without fully reckoning with what that means for either political party. The assumption has been that younger voters naturally belong to the Democrats. National polling shows that assumption deserves scrutiny, even if recent surveys suggest Democrats still hold a significant advantage.

Maybe this collection of young Republican leaders is just a coincidence. Or maybe something is beginning to change in Colorado Republican politics, not because of a national strategy or a well-funded campaign to recruit young talent, but because a new generation is deciding to step up on its own.

November 3rd’s general election will start answering that question.