DENVER, Colorado — A day after winning the governor's race, Colorado Governor-elect Phil Weiser used his first press conference on Wednesday, November 4, to set out the agenda he will carry into office in January: guardrails for data centers, a social media law he pledged to sign as one of his first acts, and a youth service program — all against the backdrop of a third straight year of billion-dollar state budget shortfalls.
Source: Colorado Public Radio
Weiser, currently Colorado's attorney general, spoke at the Capitol Annex Building in Denver. Awaaz Punjab reported his election win on Tuesday, when the Associated Press called the open governor's race for him at 7 p.m. MST as polls closed; he succeeds term-limited Governor Jared Polis. Unofficial returns compiled by the Colorado Secretary of State's election-night reporting put the Weiser–Dahlkemper ticket at 1,426,569 votes, 60.62 percent, against 796,821 votes, 33.86 percent, for Republicans Victor Marx and George Washington Markert — one of the largest winning margins in state history.
A sweep, and a supermajority
Democrats won all four statewide constitutional offices on Tuesday: Jena Griswold as attorney general, Lesley Dahlkemper as lieutenant governor, Amanda Gonzales as secretary of state and State Senator Jeffrey Bridges as treasurer. In the legislature, Democrats won 17 of the 21 state Senate seats on the ballot, giving them a two-thirds supermajority in the 35-seat chamber when the General Assembly convenes in January, and 49 of the 65 state House seats. U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper was also re-elected. Senate President James Coleman of Denver said of the caucus result: “I'm so proud of what our caucus achieved last night and grateful for the Colorado voters who continue to place their trust in us.”
Source: Estes Valley Voice
Weiser struck a bipartisan note despite that dominance. “We've got challenges on many fronts. I believe that one of the most important things I'm going to need to do is to build a team worthy of meeting these challenges,” he said, adding that he did not rule out appointing Republicans to his cabinet: “My instruction is to get the best people, which means if you're Republican, you're unaffiliated, you're a Democrat, I want you to apply because we need the very best people we can get to build the leadership that Colorado deserves.”
Priority one: data centers
On data centers and artificial intelligence — an issue Colorado Public Radio described as boiling over in communities across the state — Weiser said some projects had been imposed on residents without their consent. “There have been data centers where communities feel they've been shoved down their throats. That should not have happened,” he said. “We need to make sure we have guardrails in place that these data centers pay their own electricity needs… We have clean energy commitments, and we're committed to protecting our water… There are data center opportunities in Colorado.”
Priority two: social media — and a bill he says he will sign
Weiser pointed to a report from his own attorney general's office which, he said, found that for young people, getting access on social media to guns and fentanyl is “as easy as buying a pizza” and that platforms are “operating in a highly irresponsible way.” Governor Polis vetoed a social media bill based on that report. “I look forward to signing it as one of my first acts,” Weiser said — a direct, dated commitment that will be tested in his first legislative session.
Priority three: ColoradoCorps, and the business community
His third priority is ColoradoCorps, a program enabling 18- to 26-year-olds to serve their communities; he cited a nursing track at the Community College of Aurora as a model he wants to lift up: “[The goal is] calling young people to serve.” Weiser also pledged to take business leaders' concerns about Colorado's economic competitiveness seriously, saying some past laws were overbroad: “We should be open to asking, ‘Can we create more targeted laws? Can we remove unnecessary and cumbersome restrictions?’ That dialogue that I've been having with the business community will continue.”
Data-center rules, youth social-media laws and state budget fights are live in almost every statehouse this year. Colorado now pairs a Democratic governor-elect who campaigned on all three with a legislature that can pass — and if needed override — his program, making the state an early test of how far those policies go in 2027.
What happens next
Weiser will spend the coming weeks building his transition team and cabinet ahead of his January inauguration, while his party's supermajorities prepare the 2027 legislative session in Denver. The first tests are already visible: a data-center guardrail bill, the social media measure he has promised to sign, and a budget negotiation shaped by a third consecutive billion-dollar shortfall. Awaaz Punjab will track the transition appointments and the first bills as they are filed.