DENVER, Colorado — The Associated Press called Colorado's governor's race for Democrat Phil Weiser at 7:01 p.m. Mountain Time on Tuesday, November 3, 2026 — one minute after the state's polls closed — making the state's attorney general of nearly eight years the successor to term-limited Democratic Governor Jared Polis. NBC News also projected Weiser the winner over Republican Victor Marx, a political newcomer whose insurgent campaign never closed the gap in a state that has not elected a Republican governor since 2002.
Source: Colorado Public Radio News
The early count matched the runaway the polls had promised. In the AP count available as this story was filed, Weiser led with 929,803 votes to Marx's 534,078 — about 63.5 per cent to 36.5 per cent of the two-candidate vote — with 2,514 of Colorado's 4,230 precincts reporting and an estimated 59.4 per cent of the vote counted. The final pre-election survey from Keating Research, conducted November 1–2 among 400 likely voters, had put Weiser ahead 59 per cent to 33 per cent. Results remain unofficial until Colorado's canvass and certification.
Source: Associated Press election results, Colorado Governor (Race 6619)
Weiser, Colorado's attorney general since 2019, pitched himself to voters as both a fighter and a collaborator, Colorado Public Radio reported — a candidate who had spent nearly eight years in statewide office, leaned into his lawsuits against the Trump administration to block federal funding cuts, and made affordability the centrepiece of his campaign. 'What people deserve is if you're a teacher anywhere in Colorado, you should be able to afford a starter home in the community where you work,' Weiser said during the campaign, in remarks reported by CPR. 'If you're a firefighter or a police officer, it's important that you can afford to live in your community. That's what people deserve. That's not the case right now.'
Source: Colorado Public Radio News
He beat a sitting U.S. senator to get here
Weiser's hardest race of 2026 was not the general election — it was the June 30 Democratic primary, where he defeated Michael Bennet, a sitting U.S. senator since 2009, by 56.9 per cent to 43.1 per cent (505,444 votes to 383,131). Bennet chose to run for governor despite holding a Senate term that runs to January 2029. In the general election Weiser ran with Lesley Dahlkemper as his lieutenant-governor nominee, and he becomes Colorado's second consecutive Jewish governor, after Polis. Seven candidates in all contested the office, including unaffiliated former Republican Greg Lopez and the nominees of the Libertarian, American Constitution, Unity and Approval Voting parties.
Source: Colorado Public Radio News
Marx: the outsider who split his own party
Marx, a self-styled Christian ministry leader and humanitarian with a massive social-media following, won the Republican nomination in the closest GOP gubernatorial primary in Colorado history — 39.9 per cent (208,455 votes) to state Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer's 39.4 per cent (205,990), a margin of 2,465 votes that took the AP until July 10 to call, with state Representative Scott Bottoms third at 20.8 per cent. Both of Marx's primary opponents had indicated they would refuse to endorse him if he won. In the general election he refused to participate in media-hosted debates, criticised establishment Republicans for failing to unite behind him, and ran on putting a check on years of Democratic control. CPR reported that his candidacy drew sustained scrutiny over claims from his personal story that many voters and journalists viewed as fantastical; Marx framed his run as 'one event after another of proving people wrong.' His running mate was George Markert.
Source: Colorado Public Radio News
Weiser takes the helm with Democrats holding the state legislature by wide margins — and with the state's money problems waiting on his desk. Lawmakers this year closed a $1.5 billion budget shortfall, and CPR reports the budget challenges are expected to continue into the next governor's term. A bipartisan Colorado Polling Institute survey found voters across the political spectrum naming affordability as the top issue they want state government to address, alongside housing costs, taxes and immigration. For Colorado's Indian and Punjabi families — concentrated in the Denver metro, Aurora, Colorado Springs and the I-25 and I-70 trucking corridors — the new governor's housing, licensing and small-business agenda will decide costs that the campaign argued about for a year.
What happens next
Counting continues in Colorado's all-mail-ballot system, where ballots postmarked and received under state deadlines are still being tallied, and the results remain unofficial until the state canvass and certification. Weiser will succeed Polis, who was ineligible for a third consecutive term after eight years in office, when the new term begins in January. His first tests are already visible: a state budget that lawmakers expect to stay under pressure, an affordability crisis his own campaign made the centre of the race, and an attorney general's record of suing the Trump administration that he must now convert into a governing relationship with Washington. Republicans, shut out of the Colorado governor's office since 2002 and of every statewide office since 2016, begin another rebuilding cycle.