Democrat Dave Young will serve a second four-year term as Colorado State Treasurer, unofficial election results show. 

The Associated Press declared Young the winner just after midnight on Wednesday. Young is leading against his Republican challenger, former state Rep. Lang Sias, in a 52.2% to 44.6% vote as of Thursday.

The state treasurer manages more than 750 state funds and serves as an ex-officio member of the board that governs the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association, known as PERA. The treasurer also runs the state’s Unclaimed Property Division.

Young was first elected treasurer in 2018, after representing Greeley as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives for eight years. Before he entered politics, Young taught at Heath Junior High in Greeley for 24 years and served as president of the Greeley Education Association teachers’ union. 

If re-elected, this will be Young’s final term as state treasurer, as he will reach his term limit at the end of his second consecutive four-year term in 2027.  

This would be a big win for the Colorado Democratic Party as some GOP insiders considered the race for state treasure to be their best chance at winning a statewide contest this year.

Republican candidate Sias is a retired Air Force Air National Guard lieutenant colonel who represented Jefferson County in the Colorado House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. In 2018, he dropped his House reelection bid to mount an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor as the running mate to Republican Walker Stapleton – Colorado’s last treasurer before Young.

Before that, Sias ran two unsuccessful campaigns to represent Senate District 19 and lost a GOP primary in the 7th Congressional District.

Young out-fundraised Sias more than three to one during the race, collecting over $610,000 to Sias’ nearly $194,000, according to the latest filings from the Secretary of State’s Office from Oct. 31. Young spent over $625,000 on his campaign, including a $40,000 loan and $10,000 of leftover funds from his previous election. Sias spent around $160,000.

Both Young and Sias ran unopposed in their June primary elections.

Young told Colorado Politics that the first program he will work on in his new term is the Colorado SecureSavings program, a pilot program he launched seeking to assist one million private sector workers in saving for retirement. The program is scheduled to officially roll out in January.

Young said his other priorities include protecting tax-payer dollars, returning unclaimed property to Coloradans and continuing to build on the SecureSavings program and the CLIMBER program, the latter of which he set up to distribute $250 million in working capital loans to small businesses struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sias told Colorado Politics he wanted to be treasurer to “restore balance” to Colorado’s economic leadership by ending the Democrats’ single-party statewide rule, vowing to protect TABOR, increase efficiency in the Treasury department and improve PERA’s financial position.