By Dick Wadhams

The ravages of eight years of total Democratic control of state government and twenty consecutive years of Democratic governors are souring voters on their candidates in 2026 as Colorado continues to decline.

Meanwhile, rather than embracing an opportunity to restore some competence and balance to state government with mainstream conservative policies and candidates, Republicans keep heading to the cliff of irrelevance. They tell unaffiliated voters to get lost while embracing individuals who wallow in anti-semitic bigotry, extreme rhetoric, and stolen election conspiracies.

New numbers from the Colorado Polling Institute show declines in public support for Democratic elected officials who have dominated Colorado politics for the past sixteen years.

Term-limited Gov. Jared Polis is underwater with a favorable-unfavorable rating of 44% to 48% which is a decline from a year ago as he finally ends eight years.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who is in his third term after being appointed to the Senate in 2009, is at 40% to 39% which is a decline from 41% to 35% a year ago when he started running for governor.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who has been in public office since 2003 as Denver mayor, governor and senator, is at 43% to 43% after being at 43% to 38% last year. Hickenlooper would turn 80 years old during another term.

Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is running for governor, remains largely unknown at 26% to 23% despite being in that office for nearly eight years. Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who wants to take her special brand of incompetence and blind partisanship to the office of attorney general, is underwater at 29% to 33%. The Colorado Democratic Party is at 41% to 54%.

These statewide Democratic elected officials, along with the Democratic Socialists who drive their massive legislative majorities, are responsible for the failed policies that have increased crime, driven over-regulated companies out of the state while discouraging companies from moving here, given limited Medicaid funds to illegal immigrants at the expense of Colorado’s poor and elderly, and misspent transportation dollars while roads continue to deteriorate.

The 2026 election should be a huge opportunity for Republicans to offer strong alternatives to failed Democrats but obstacles remain.

President Donald Trump remains a drag on Republican candidates with a dismal 37% approval and 61% disapproval. The Colorado Republican Party is rated at 36% to 60%.

Trump is obsessed with pressuring Colorado to release the discredited and convicted Tina Peters from state prison. He vetoed funding for a water project for southeastern Colorado and denied federal disaster designations for flooding in Archuleta County and fires in Rio Blanco County. He moved the U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs to Alabama.

Brita Horn ended her tenure as state chair with a terribly disorganized state assembly. But that assembly chaos pales in comparison with the emergence of two highly unelectable candidates for governor in the June primary.

State Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs publicly claims pedophile sex rings rage throughout the state Capitol but refuses to reveal his “proof” until after he is elected governor. Bottoms is very comfortable in the conspiracy wing of the party.

Colorado Springs pastor Victor Marx is running a bewildering, cloistered campaign. Other than declaring he would pardon Tina Peters on inauguration day, he offers no details on his nebulous agenda. When questions are raised about his mysterious professional and personal backgrounds, he claims he is the victim of unfair scrutiny.

There is no earthly way either Bottoms or Marx could win a statewide general election and they would hurt other Republican candidates in competitive races.

Yet the Colorado Republican state assembly collectively gave these two candidates 84% of the vote. Widely respected Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell received only 12% despite running a substantive campaign devoid of the mystery and conspiracies of Bottoms and Marx.

Fortunately, Colorado Republicans will have a third candidate to consider, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, who got on the primary ballot by petition. As a member of the powerful Joint Budget Committee, Kirkmeyer has been on the front line of effectively confronting the failed policies of dominant Democrats.

The 500-member Colorado Republican State Central Committee will soon meet to elect a new state chair to replace Horn. One of the leading candidates is stolen election conspiracist Joe Oltmann who claims Jewish elected officials such as Polis, Bennet, Weiser, Griswold, state Sen. Michael Weisman and Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubenstein are members of the “Synagogue of Satan” and should be tried before military tribunals and hanged.

How can a political party be taken seriously if it elects an anti-semitic, conspiracy obsessed chair who supports public hangings?

Meanwhile, the state GOP assembly passed a resolution directing the party to file a lawsuit in federal court to prohibit more than 2 million unaffiliated voters from receiving the Republican primary ballot in June. Those unaffiliated voters, who make up a 51% majority of the electorate, would still receive the Democratic primary ballot in the mail.

Colorado Democrats who totally control every level of state government are being rejected by voters but if Colorado Republicans head to the cliff of irrelevance those voters will be driven right back into the arms of those same failed Democrats.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who managed campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens. He was campaign manager for U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota in 2004 when Thune unseated Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.