Colorado's Republican gubernatorial nominee Victor Marx is running an all-Marine ticket against Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser, and framing the race as a last stand against democratic socialism's growing foothold in the state.
Marx, a Marine Corps veteran and founder of the humanitarian nonprofit All Things Possible Ministries, won Colorado's Republican primary on June 30, defeating establishment-backed state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer and state Rep. Scott Bottoms in a tight race. He tapped retired Marine Col. George Markert, a 30-year Marine Corps veteran with senior leadership assignments at U.S. Central Command and the 2nd and 4th Marine Logistics Groups, as his running mate, giving the GOP ticket two Marines at the top.
The pitch is blunt. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Marx laid out a campaign built on public safety, cost of living, and direct confrontation with what he calls the Democratic Socialists of America's expanding influence in Colorado politics.
Marx's warning about democratic socialism is not abstract. In June, Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist endorsed by the DSA, upset longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado's Democratic congressional primary. DeGette had held her seat for more than a dozen terms. Her defeat by a DSA-backed challenger handed Marx a concrete example of leftward drift inside the state's Democratic Party.
Marx did not hold back about where he places responsibility for the DSA's rise.
"We're one election away. It's either me, or it's a Democrat. And I lay the DSA at the Democrats' feet. It didn't come through the Republican Party or Independents. It came through the Democrats."
He went further, describing the DSA as "organized, they're well-funded, they are focused on reshaping Colorado from the top down." Fox News Digital noted that the DSA supports the eventual abolition of police, a position that tracks with the broader pattern of far-left insurgents challenging Democratic establishment figures across the 2026 primary map.
Marx framed socialism itself in stark terms:
"There's never been a successful socialism program, and I'll say socialism, it's just a transitionary word for communism. Let's just say it for what it is."
The candidate's toughest line of attack against his general-election opponent centers on public safety. Phil Weiser, Colorado's Democratic attorney general, has spent much of his tenure filing legal challenges against the Trump administration, including lawsuits over birthright citizenship restrictions and immigration-related policies. Marx argues Weiser has been looking in the wrong direction while crime climbed.
The numbers give Marx material to work with. In 2024, Colorado recorded roughly 476 violent crimes per 100,000 residents and approximately 2,593 property crimes per 100,000 residents. Those figures ran 28% and 41% above the national rates, respectively, as calculated by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Marx pointed to that record in his Fox News Digital interview:
"[H]e hasn't made our state safer. It's softer on crime, and we've experienced it. So folks are ready for a change."
He accused state leaders of misplaced priorities more broadly. "They're more focused on policing speech than protecting families," Marx said. "While residents are worried about crime, gang activity, state leaders are advancing this ideology with policies that threaten our free speech and punish people for the beliefs."
Fox News Digital reached out to Weiser for comment. No response was included in the report.
Marx is a political outsider running for public office for the first time. The Washington Examiner profiled him as a candidate whose policy priorities include affordability, a property tax cap, a freeze on regulations, and mandatory 10% cuts across all state agencies. He has described himself as a "high risk humanitarian" and claims to have led more than 150 high-stakes missions in dangerous regions through his ministry, including a mission into ISIS territory to rescue kidnapped girls.
His running mate, Markert, brings a different kind of résumé. After three decades in the Marine Corps, Markert transitioned into the private sector, overseeing infrastructure-related field operations across North America. Marx leaned into the military branding of the ticket.
"People know what they're going to get when they get Marines. We've got hard foreheads, steely spines. And high integrity."
But Colorado presents a steep climb. AP News reported that the state has not elected a Republican governor in more than 20 years and backed Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by more than 10 points in 2024. Marx's primary opponent, Kirkmeyer, conceded with dry humor: "I'm still proud of the campaign we ran... and, for the record, I still haven't killed anyone."
Marx, for his part, framed his primary win as proof that voter frustration can overcome long odds. He told supporters, "If you're frustrated, skeptical, or wondering if anything can actually change, I just proved it by winning the primary."
He also earned the endorsement of Rep. Lauren Boebert, a sign that the populist wing of the state GOP is consolidating behind him heading into November.
Marx's campaign message gains weight from the fact that Colorado's leftward lurch is not happening in a vacuum. The June primaries revealed a socialist insurgency spreading beyond New York and into the Democratic mainstream in multiple states. In New York, a socialist slate swept Democratic primaries and ousted two incumbents. In Michigan, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have rallied behind a far-left Senate candidate as the Democratic primary fractures along ideological lines.
Marx is betting that Colorado voters, watching violent crime outpace the national average, watching DSA-endorsed candidates knock off longtime incumbents, watching their attorney general spend his political capital suing the federal government, are ready to try something different. Whether a first-time candidate and self-described humanitarian can flip a state that hasn't gone Republican in a governor's race in over two decades is another question entirely.
Colorado's voters will decide in November whether they want Marines or more of the same. Marx is making sure they know which side he's on.
