Adam Matkowsky is dropping out of the Democratic primary in Senate District 24 and plans to run for the battleground seat as an independent, the Thornton city councilman and Westminster police officer said Monday.

“There comes a time when good people have to say enough with the current political system. The two parties care more about scoring political points than finding solutions for our state,” Matkowsky said in a statement. “Transportation is a perfect example. Everyone agrees our roads are significantly congested and in dire need of solutions but the two parties can’t come together to fix this obvious problem. That is unacceptable.”

Matkowsky had been running against state Rep. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, for the Democratic nomination and the chance to take on state Sen. Beth Martinez Humenik, R-Thornton, in a race that could determine which party controls the state Senate after next year’s election.

Winter told Colorado Politics in a text message that she looks forward to seeing Matkowsky on the campaign trail and having “a robust debate about what the voters of SD 24 want from their senator.”

The suburban district, covering Northglenn, Thornton and Westminster, is one of only two Republican-held swing seats on the 2018 ballot. The Senate GOP, which holds an 18-17 majority, credited Martinez Humenik with a narrow, unexpected win in 2014 to seal the party’s first majority in the chamber in a dozen years.

Matkowsky, a Marine Corps veteran, said his record on Thornton’s nonpartisan city council demonstrates his ability to work across the aisle. Among the accomplishments he pointed to in a release announcing his switch: putting 50 additional police officers on the street and hiring 10 new firefighters, encouraging voters to approve building a public safety training facility and getting started on repairing more than 300 miles of the suburb’s roads.

“Being on a city council, you have to be nonpartisan to get things done,” Matkowsky said. “I think our state legislators have forgotten that and they need to be reminded. We need at least one unaffiliated member in the Colorado Legislature to start fixing this issue. As a Marine and police officer, I can handle, and openly welcome, that role.”

A national group called the Centrist Project is targeting Colorado with the goal of electing a handful of unaffiliated lawmakers – enough to deny Democrats and Republicans control of both chambers and enforce what the group calls a more moderate, common-sense approach to governing.

Matkowsky told Colorado Politics he hopes to win support from the organization, which has said it plans to unveil a slate of unaffiliated legislative candidates sometime in January.