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Money didn’t win Colorado’s primary. The ground game did.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Money didn’t win Colorado’s primary. The ground game did.

By Rocky Mountain Voice Editorial Board One of Colorado's biggest races still isn't settled. Two days after the polls closed, the Republican primary for governor had not been called. Victor Marx led Barb Kirkmeyer by about 2,000 votes statewide—39.86 percent to 39.43 percent, with Scott Bottoms third at 20.71 percent—in the Secretary of State's Thursday morning count. Marx's edge, 2,181 votes out of more than 500,000 cast, sits just outside Colorado's mandatory recount range, which trips at half a percentage point.  On the Democrat side, the race was settled. Attorney General Phil Weiser defeated U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, 56.71 percent to 43.29 percent. Colorado doesn't finish voting when the polls close. And neither do Colorado's campaigns. The real story from Tues...
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Colorado ignored the warning: Now the aspens are disappearing
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado ignored the warning: Now the aspens are disappearing

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that “Truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” Twenty-eight years ago, in the summer of 1998, the Club 20 Research Foundation published a report called “Decline of the Aspen: A Special Report on the Health of National Forests in Colorado.” It attracted substantial media coverage, widespread opposition to its recommendations, and even ridicule from some environmental industry groups that considered themselves superior experts on forest management. The Report suggested a growing crisis in Western Colorado’s aspen forests. Then-State Forester James Hubbard was quoted saying, “If the U.S. Forest Service po...
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Who’s guiding Colorado’s Medicaid Commission? A closer look at the panel shaping future policy
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Who’s guiding Colorado’s Medicaid Commission? A closer look at the panel shaping future policy

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Meet the Medicaid Commission and their newly-hired advisor. Medicaid is a big line item in the state’s budget. It’s gotten so big, and eaten up so much of our state’s money, that our legislature has gathered up a commission. SB26-187 (linked first below) creates a (quoting from the bill summary): “… commission on Medicaid (commission) to develop recommendations regarding implementation of new federal Medicaid policy changes that go into effect in 2026, 2027, and 2028 and to support Coloradans impacted by those policy changes.” This commission will meet a few times and prepare a report to be used by the legislature in the 2027 session. Quoting from the bill’s fiscal note: “Between May 13, 2026, and December...
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Boebert Advances to November Showdown Against Laubacher in Colorado’s 4th District
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Boebert Advances to November Showdown Against Laubacher in Colorado’s 4th District

By: Lauren Green | Colorado Politics Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) learned her Democratic opponent on Tuesday after both candidates advanced unopposed. Boebert is set for a matchup with Democrat Eileen Laubacher. Boebert originally representedColorado‘s 3rd Congressional District before she mounted a run in the 4th District after winning by just a few hundred votes in 2022. Boebert now sits in a seat rated “Solid Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Boebert will face Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral and Colorado native, in November. The at times controversial Republican is a boon for Democratic fundraising. Her Democratic opponent raised nearly $7 million in 2022 and more than $17 million in 2024, which would have been ...
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Victor Marx Pulls Ahead as Colorado GOP Governor Race Moves Beyond Recount Margin
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Victor Marx Pulls Ahead as Colorado GOP Governor Race Moves Beyond Recount Margin

By: Luige Del Puerto | The Denver Gazette Ministry leader Victor Marx on Wednesday night overtook state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer in the Republican primary for Colorado governor, securing enough votes that — for now — put the race beyond the mandatory recount threshold. The Republican primary race between Kirkmeyer and Marx briefly entered mandatory recount territory on Wednesday afternoon, with just a few hundred votes separating the two candidates. The eventual Republican nominee will face Attorney General Phil Weiser, who defeated U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the Democratic primary. Kirkmeyer’s edge over Marx had been shrinking from about 8,000 votes, or 1 percentage point, to fewer than 700 votes — until Marx took the lead by Wednesday night. As of the...
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Polis Fires Two Clemency Board Members After Tina Peters Vote Becomes Public
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Just The News, Approved, State

Polis Fires Two Clemency Board Members After Tina Peters Vote Becomes Public

By Kevin Killough | Just the News Peters, a former clerk of Mesa County, was sentenced to nine years in prison after she was convicted in 2024 of tampering with voting machines in an attempt to show that the 2020 presidential election was gamed to favor Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis fired two members of the state's clemency board after they disclosed the board's recommendation to the governor against commuting the prison sentence of Tina Peters.  Peters, a former clerk of Mesa County, was sentenced to nine years in prison after she was convicted in 2024 of tampering with voting machines in an attempt to show that the 2020 presidential election was gamed to favor Democratic candidate Joe Biden.  Clemency board members Hanna...
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The award wasn’t the greatest gift of the weekend
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Don't Eat Toast Naked, Approved, Commentary, State

The award wasn’t the greatest gift of the weekend

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Don't Eat Toast Naked Drake Hunter reflects on receiving Rocky Mountain Voice's Trailblazer Award during RMV Freedom Fest and why the weekend's greatest lesson came after the applause ended. Some weeks are so full you don’t know where to begin. This was one of those weeks. For more than two years, I’ve had the privilege of serving alongside the incredible team at Rocky Mountain Voice. What began as writing a weekly devotional has grown into friendships, opportunities, and experiences I never could have imagined. Over the past several months, that journey has taken me to places I never expected—including attending Turning Point USA in Phoenix with Heidi Ganahl, flying on a private jet for the first time, and helpi...
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Tenth Circuit strikes down DOJ detention theory, ruling affects Colorado courts
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Tenth Circuit strikes down DOJ detention theory, ruling affects Colorado courts

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Rigoberto Santillan Quiroz entered the United States without inspection in 2006.  ICE arrested him at a traffic stop on November 2, 2025 and initiated removal proceedings on the ground that he entered without admission or parole.  His federal habeas petition, filed in the Western District of Oklahoma, became Quiroz v. Mullin.  On June 30, the Tenth Circuit ruled in his favor, covering six states and striking down the theory behind 722 such petitions filed in Colorado in 2026 through June 15. What the court decided Judges Federico, Bacharach, and Ebel produced a 48-page unanimous opinion, with Federico authoring.  The government's theory rested on §1225(b)(2)(A) of the Immigration and National...
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Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Getting on is the easy part
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Getting on is the easy part

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice I’ve spent the last few months digging deeply into the Colorado voter roll from all sorts of different angles and although politicians of a certain party and their supporters are quick to parrot that Colorado exemplifies the “gold standard” of election integrity, that very definitely does NOT appear to be the case after a close examination of Colorado’s voter roll, the rightful starting point for any such assessment of the quality of election integrity in this or any other state. A closing line from the Eagles' 1976 hit song ‘Hotel California’ seems to be the most appropriate way to summarize the apparent philosophy behind the approach taken by Colorado’s legislature and the current Secretary of State when it comes to the...
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Colorado primary delivers a warning conservatives shouldn’t ignore
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado primary delivers a warning conservatives shouldn’t ignore

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice What happened in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District should get everyone’s attention. Democratic socialist Melat Kiros just defeated Diana DeGette, a 15-term Democratic incumbent who has represented Denver for nearly three decades. This was not a conservative beating a liberal. This was the activist left defeating the Democratic establishment from inside its own party. That matters. The Democratic Party increasingly has no effective guardrails against its most radical elements. The fringe is no longer staying on the fringe. It is organizing, primarying incumbents, capturing safe seats, and moving ideas once considered extreme into the party’s mainstream. That is dangerous for the country because democratic sociali...
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