Victor Marx is trying to turn a personal ministry and a first run for public office into a bid for the Colorado governor’s office, casting his campaign as something larger than a normal primary race. The 60-year-old Marine veteran from Colorado Springs is one of three Republicans on the ballot June 30, and he says the effort already feels different from the party’s recent history in the state.
"It always boils down to leadership," Marx said in an interview that also touched on affordability, the state budget, data centers and other top issues. He pointed to what he called a course correction inside the Colorado GOP under chair Craig Steiner, saying, "I think we've done a very good course correction with putting (Colorado GOP Chair) Craig Steiner in the leadership position with the GOP."
Marx, who founded and leads All Things Possible, a nonprofit humanitarian ministry, is not running as a career politician. He has written two books about his life, but this campaign is his first attempt to win elected office. That outsider profile fits the way he talks about the race: not as a machine-built contest, but as a revival of interest inside a party that has spent a long stretch losing statewide in Colorado.
He described the shift in language that sounds more like organizing than campaigning. "That was the first stopgap — it applied pressure to the squirting wound," he said, before adding, "It feels like a movement, not an election." Marx said Republican voters are already responding. "People are excited to be back in the process, so it's working already," he said.
That claim runs into the reality of the race around him. Republicans have been trying for years to reverse a string of defeats in Colorado, and the June 30 primary will decide whether Marx or rivals Scott Bottoms and Barbara Kirkmeyer gets the party’s nomination for governor. For Marx, the immediate test is whether movement energy can survive contact with a statewide electorate that has not rewarded Republicans often in recent cycles.
The next marker is fixed. Colorado Republicans will choose their nominee on June 30, and Marx will find out whether his first campaign, built around leadership and turnout, can convert enthusiasm into votes.
