Another Republican candidate has emerged in Adams County to seek the nomination for the Colorado House seat that became vacant when then-Rep. Steve Lebsock of Thornton was expelled from the House on March 2.

There also are now two GOP candidates who will appear on the June 26 primary ballot, the result of voting at Saturday’s Adams County GOP assembly.

Alexander Winkler of Northglenn, who ran for the seat in 2014, intends to seek the vacancy appointment when the House District 34 GOP vacancy committee meets on Friday, according to Anil Mathai, chair of the Adams County GOP.  Winkler also is running for the seat in the November election.

The decision on who would fill the seat left by Lebsock’s expulsion became the purview of the GOP when Lebsock changed his party affiliation an hour before the 52-9 vote to kick him out of the House.

Winkler, who has not yet filed a candidacy for the seat, nonetheless took top line at the Adams County GOP Assembly on Saturday. Mathai told Colorado Politics that Winkler gained 11 delegates to 10 for Casey Cole, who filed to run for the seat in February and had already announced his intention to seek the vacancy appointment.

Mathai added he believes there may be others who will seek the vacancy on Friday.

The House District 34 seat is not the only contested primary that involves Adams County. Rep. Phil Covarrubias will face off against Rod Bockenfeld of Watkins for the primary, but the decision on who wins the top line on the ballot will be made at a multi-county assembly in the next few weeks, Mathai said. There are 55 delegates from Adams County who will attend that assembly.

Adams County includes two contests that will be among the most watched, both in the state and even nationally – the race for control of the state Senate and the race for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The state Senate seat likely to be the most targeted by both parties – and the outside groups that fund attack ads – is that of Senate District 24, currently represented by Republican Sen. Beth Martinez Humenik of Thornton. She had no challengers at Saturday’s assembly.

Martinez Humenik briefly addressed the assembly Saturday, pointing to her legislative efforts on mental health and a bill she sponsored, recently signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper, to allow the families of state employees who die in the line of duty to stay on state health insurance.

She also addressed the ongoing controversy over sexual harassment at the state Capitol and the resolution, sponsored by the Senate’s Democrats, to seek the expulsion of Republican Sen. Randy Baumgardner of Hot Sulphur Springs. An investigation into a sexual harassment allegation against Baumgardner was reportedly found to be credible. Baumgardner has denied the allegation that he slapped the buttocks of a legislative aide in 2016, but he voluntarily resigned as chair of the Senate Transportation Committee last month.

Martinez Humenik assured the assembly that “the leadership is in charge of making the decisions,” and that there is a policy in place on sexual harassment, but added that she didn’t know any more about the situation than what has been reported in the media.

The demographics of Senate District 24 are changing, she told the assembly, with more unaffiliated voters than ever. Unaffiliated voters now represent the largest segment of active registered voters in the district, with more than 35,000, as of February. Democratic voters total more than 29,000; Republican voters number just under 25,0000. “It’s important to be a moderate Republican in this district,” she later told Colorado Politics.

And while Adams County makes up only a small portion of Congressional District 6, the candidates for the GOP primary were in full force at Saturday’s assembly. U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora spent a good part of his Saturday morning at the assembly, as did challenger Roger Edwards.

“This district is a heavily targeted district,” Coffman told the assembly. The Democratic Congressional Committee has already put down $2 million to reserve TV time, he said.

He drew boos from the audience when he claimed that if Democrats take the majority in the fall election, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California would return as Speaker of the House. When she is speaker, our military gains will be reversed. We will never ever realize our obligations to the men and women who serve this country. She will reverse what we’ve done” on taxes and government regulations. Democrats see Coffman’s district “as part of the path to the majority. I need your help to stop it.”

Roger Edwards of Highlands Ranch is running against Coffman in the GOP primary. He said he has a different perspective on those who come to the United States to become citizens.

“The question is, can we keep America?” he said. “It’s up to the people in this room ….We are in dire straits,” with $22 trillion in debt, and irresponsible spending by Congress.

The time has come, he said, to “send a message to Congress that we will not settle for something less. We want America to be the America we’ve always known.”

The most heavily populated portion of the county is on its western side, which includes Commerce City and Thornton and is included in Congressional District 7. Republican candidate Mark Barrington of Lakewood attended the assembly at full speed, zipping around the room on a hoverboard. He referred to his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Arvada, as “too-tired Ed,” pointing to Perlmutter’s initial decision to step away from Congress and run for governor, and then to change his mind and run for another term in the U.S. House.

“The district deserves better,” former Democratic senator Nichol told Colorado Politics. She said she had served with Perlmutter when he was in the Colorado Senate, and called him “wishy-washy.”

The Adams County GOP assembly could send as many as 186 delegates to the Congressional District 7 Republican assembly, which will pick its candidates in the coming weeks. Mathai said there was no preference taken on candidates on Saturday.