Republican governor candidates oppose military troops in Colorado cities
Republican candidates for Colorado governor during a forum Thursday night were skeptical of a plan to send federal troops into American cities.
“I’m very nervous about the idea of using our military domestically,” state Senator Mark Baisley said. “I would invite, but to come in as augmentation to our law enforcement officers, but not to operate independently. I think that’s a little bit dangerous.”
In a speech to military leaders this week, President Donald Trump suggested that American cities should be used as “training grounds” for the armed forces. Trump has already deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Portland, Oregon, and other American cities to support immigration enforcement and “law and order.”
Baisley has sponsored multiple pieces of state legislation to lift Colorado’s restrictions on local law enforcement working with immigration authorities.
“There are circumstances in a declared emergency disaster, both at the state and at the presidential level, that you would call in the National Guard to assist. It’s a last resort if the local government refuses to help keep us safe,” state Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer said.
Joshua Griffin, a veteran, was more direct.
“I would never put one of our people in the city, because we’re trained to kill, not to police,” he said.
The candidate forum, one of the first of the 2026 election cycle, was hosted by the Denver Press Club and moderated by Marianne Goodland and Ernest Luning of Colorado Politics. It featured nine candidates: Baisley, Griffin, Kirkmeyer, Bob Brinkerhoff, Jason Clark, Jon Gray-Ginsberg, Kelvin “K-Man” Wimberly, Greg Lopez and Will McBride.
State Representative Scott Bottoms and Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell were not at the forum. Neither was ministry leader Victor Marx, who announced his candidacy this week and has the backing of U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert of Windsor.
Over the course of the last seven years under one-party control, decisions have been made by the liberal Democrats that have put us into this mess. It’s over-spending.
It is shaping up to be a crowded GOP primary field. Nineteen Republicans are vying for the party’s nomination in the governor’s race next year, when voters will decide the replacement for Democratic Governor Jared Polis, who is term-limited. Republicans in Colorado have lost power at the state level in recent years, and the last Republican governor was Bill Owens, who left office in 2007.
Kirkmeyer is among the most high-profile candidates and has the endorsement of Owens.
Colorado currently has a trifecta, with a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers.
“For the last seven years, Colorado has been turned into the ugly twin sister of California by a single party’s rule. Government today is not allowing us to live the American dream and not allowing us to fulfill our own destiny,” said Lopez, who served a short stint in the U.S. House of Representatives last year and also ran for the Republican nomination for governor in 2022.
The next governor likely will need to lead the state through an ongoing budget shortfall. Lawmakers had to cut $1 billion from the budget this year, and there’s an estimated $1.2 billion gap next year. That is in addition to a higher state cost share for safety net programs like Medicaid as the federal government cuts its own spending for the programs.
Kirkmeyer, who sits on the Joint Budget Committee in the Legislature, said she wants to enact a 10 percent across-the-board cut to state spending. She also said she would overhaul the management and implementation of Medicaid through the state’s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.
“There are personnel services and line items that could be cut,” she said. “Over the course of the last seven years under one-party control, decisions have been made by the liberal Democrats that have put us into this mess. It’s over-spending.”
McBride, a lawyer, said the state needs to prioritize “essential services and infrastructure, not bloated bureaucracy.” He also wants to eliminate the state income tax.
The candidates were nearly in agreement about pardoning Tina Peters if elected. Kirkmeyer said she would consider it if “faced with new facts” and Griffin said he would consider commuting her sentence. Peters, who denies the results of the 2020 presidential election, was sentenced to nine years in prison for her role in a security breach in her own elections office when she was the county clerk in Mesa County.
All of the candidates also said they support a pause in gray wolf reintroduction in the state.
The state’s primary elections are on June 30 next year.
