The three Colorado Republicans running for governor defended their qualifications, described their visions for the state and traded jabs over each other’s character at an often contentious televised debate that routinely veered into unusual territory Tuesday night in Denver.

The 60-minute debate at the University of Denver, sponsored by 9News, The Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics, featured state Rep. Scott Bottoms, state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer and missionary leader Victor Marx.

It stands to be the only primary debate to include Marx, a first-time candidate and the race’s fundraising leader, who has declined to participate in the GOP’s other gubernatorial debates, though he recently participated in a non-debate forum.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser, the two Democrats running for the office held by term-limited Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, are scheduled to face off in a companion debate at 6 p.m. Thursday, which will also air live on 9News and stream on the Colorado Politics and The Denver Gazette websites.

Primary ballots start going out to Colorado voters on June 8 and are due back to county clerks by 7 p.m. on June 30. Democrats and Republicans receive their party’s ballots, while unaffiliated voters get both major parties’ ballots and can vote one.

The debate between the Republican contenders started with broad agreement that the state is in a terrible mess after Democrats have been entirely in control of state government for the past eight years.

“Democrats have made a complete mess of this state,” said Kirkmeyer, who has served in public office for most of the past 30 years, including as a Weld County commissioner and running state agencies. She added that she has “a plan to whip our budget into shape within six months.”

“They’ve pretty much destroyed everything in our state,” said Bottoms, who represents a district in Colorado Springs and is the lead pastor at an Assemblies of God church.

“Day One, I’m going to go back to using the constitution as our guide,” he said, naming the Second Amendment and Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights as constitutional measures that would guide him. “We’re just going to do a silly little thing called the constitution.”

Marx said that conditions in Colorado are driving people to leave the state, and he wants to reverse that.

“I’m not a politician,” he said, later adding, “I’m a leader, I’m a negotiator.”

The debate soon took a turn for testy exchanges, as Bottoms and Kirkmeyer described why they won’t support Marx if he won the nomination, as both said last week at a debate that Marx skipped.

Asked whether he considers Marx a “con man,” as he has previously said, Bottoms said he stand by his assessment.

“I also said he’s corrupt, and I also said he lies, and he’s lied to me personally,” Bottoms said, adding he will support Kirkmeyer if she won the primary because he believes she’s a “decent person.”

Looking sheepish, Marx responded to Bottoms: “You’re mean.”

“Accusations without evidence is nothing more than gossip or a lie,” Marx said, adding that Bottoms should have come to him directly with his concerns, rather than publicizing them.

Kirkmeyer declared that if Marx were the GOP nominee, the party’s candidates would lose races up and down the ballot.

“It could be the extinction of the Republican Party,” she said. “He’s unfit. By his own words, he says he’s unfit. He talks about homicidal and suicidal tendencies. It makes me worried to be in a room with him.”

Referring to Marx’s constant refrain that he’s an “outsider,” Kirkmeyer added: “That’s just your way of saying you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Kinda mean, too, Barb,” Marx responded. “Just because somebody doesn’t believe the truth, it doesn’t make it a lie.”

All Things Possible, the Colorado Springs-based ministry Marx runs, has helped “so many tens of thousands of people” over the years, he said.

Before concluding, Marx turned the tables and accused his primary rivals of being overly invested in their political future at the expense of Coloradans.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen. An outsider who no one knew wasn’t supposed to step into this race,” he said. “I didn’t think you could win, and if somebody doesn’t win that Republican chair as governor, more people are going to move out.”

The debate broached topics that likely have never before been aired at a similar candidate match-up in Colorado, including Marx’s pledge to continue performing exorcisms as part of a “spiritual war” if he’s elected governor and Bottoms’ contention that he’s privy to a plan that involves Colorado’s Democratic attorney general and secretary of state facing federal indictments this summer for sedition and treason.

At one point, Marx joked that Reagan, the service dog that lay at his feet through most of the debate, would “bite” one of the moderators after Clark pressed the candidate to say whether he has “lived one of the most extraordinary lives in human history” or is “a liar and a fraud.”

In response to Clark’s repeated question about claims he’s made about his success rate running 150 “high-risk missions” around the world, Marx said the proof is in the “people and what we document,” pointing to what he described as 20 years worth of videos and other records.

“I can’t help it if I’ve had an extraordinary life,” he said. “I’m an ordinary fella.”

In closing, Bottoms said his uncompromising approach to issues, such as parental rights, make him the ideal Republican nominee in a state that has trended toward Democrats in recent decades.

“The Democrats across the state are very frustrated with the Democrat leadership,” he said. “85% of the state says they don’t want boys in girls sports, that they are not OK with transgender surgery, and you can go right down the line. Yes, potholes and the economy are huge, but Democrats have never crossed the aisle to vote for potholes and budget. But I do believe this is our time right now, when even many Democrats are saying we’ve gone too far, we’ve gone too leftist, and we’ve got to change that.”

By differentiating from the Democratic nominee on key issues, Bottoms added, he can attract voters who are ready to abandon Democrats.

“This is our time to actually reclaim Colorado. There is no metric in the state of Colorado that is positive right now. Everything has been destroyed by the Democrats, and even Democrats recognize it, and they’re going to vote for me for governor,” he said.

Kirkmeyer said her government experience matters.

“But here’s the thing, the only person in this race that has actually qualified to be governor is me,” she said.

“I’m the only one who’s actually ever governed. I’ve decreased taxes. I’ve balanced budgets, I’ve built roads, I have backed the blue. I’ve done so, so many things to make people’s lives better. I don’t run to make a point. I make. I run to ensure that I can make a difference in people’s lives, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Marx, for his part, said he isn’t “a fan” of the way the debate had been conducted, charging that it seemed like it was intended to create “fodder for the general” election and hadn’t focused on “positive questions for real solutions for the people of Colorado.”

He ended his remarks with a prayer, including a call for God to “release suffering and pain” in the state and “stop all this political nonsense.”