With just weeks before Colorado’s June primary, Republican gubernatorial candidate state Rep. Scott Bottoms is spending nearly all his time on the road — literally crisscrossing the Western Slope and eastern plains — in a final push to connect with voters who, he argued, have been ignored for too long.

“We spend a lot of time on the West Slope,” the gubernatorial candidate told Colorado Politics on Friday. “West Slope specifically feels very left out of everything … The bills that we pass in the House, they intentionally leave out rural Colorado.”

Bottoms secured the top line on the Republican primary ballot after winning 45% of delegate support at the Colorado GOP State Assembly in March. He is running against Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer and political newcomer Victor Marx in the Republican primary for governor.

The winner of the June 30 primary will face either U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet or Attorney General Phil Weiser, who are in a tight race for the Democratic Party’s nomination to take the state’s top seat with Gov. Jared Polis being term-limited.

Rural Colorado has been ‘intentionally left out’

For Bottoms, the core of his campaign runs through the state’s smallest towns and remote counties — places he said have been systematically sidelined by Denver-centric policymaking. He describes the Western Slope and other rural regions as communities “intentionally left out” of state decisions. In these communities, residents feel overlooked not by accident but by design, he said.

“The bills that we pass in the House, they intentionally leave out rural Colorado,” Bottoms said.

He pointed to what he calls chronic failures in funding distribution, claiming that as high as 30% of appropriations “don’t get to rural communities,” despite being earmarked for them.

As the state’s urban and metro lawmakers ignore rural Colorado, Bottoms said the consequences are visible everywhere through shuttered clinics, strained county budgets and roads that never seem to make it to the top of the state’s priority list.

Rural health care, Bottoms argued, has been hit especially hard.

“There literally is just complete spaces across rural communities … that there is no health care,” he said, adding that mandates passed in Denver “directly hurt rural health arenas” and make it harder for providers to stay open.

Bottoms, who is vocal about what he described as misspending at the state Capitol, has maintained that the issue is not policy failures — but a true “breach of trust.”

Rural Coloradans, he said, “send your tax money and they don’t get the benefits, they don’t get the representation.”

If elected governor, Bottoms said he would use executive authority to reverse mandates he believes conflict with statutory obligations to rural communities and redirect up to 3.5% of state funds to restore services.

Parental rights and child safety

Parental rights are among the issues Bottoms emphasizes most on the trail. He argued that Colorado has “taken all of our rights away from parents.”

“We have no consent law in the state of Colorado,” he said, noting that he twice introduced legislation that would require parental consent for medical procedures involving minors.

He pointed to what he describes as gaps in notification requirements, saying parents are routinely excluded from major decisions affecting their children.

“A 13-year-old girl can go have an abortion, and the parents don’t even get to know about it,” he said.

Gender-affirming services are another major issue that Bottoms said he would address as governor. He asserted that teachers, counselors and medical providers “have no obligation” to inform parents about a child’s identity-related conversations or treatment.

The Republican candidate tied these worries to what he characterizes as a broader mental health crisis among young people.

“When these kids get groomed into this transgender ideology, suicide rates go through the roof,” he said, arguing that parents must be “in the driver’s seat” when children express questions about gender or identity.

Bottoms said he believes voters are becoming more frustrated with state policies that sideline parents. For Bottoms, the message is simple: “Parents are the ones who are supposed to be in the driver’s seat.”

A debate ‘circus‘

Bottoms and his two opponents only appeared once on a stage together, participating in a June 2 debate hosted by 9News along with the University of Denver, Colorado Politics and Denver Gazette.

Bottoms described the night as chaotic and expectedly contentious.

“It was a circus,” he said, arguing that the format and moderators created an atmosphere focused more on confrontation than policy.

He accused moderator Kyle Clark of 9News of turning the event into “gotcha after gotcha after gotcha,” saying he felt the moderators took it easier on Kirkmeyer than on him and Marx.

Bottoms also pushed back on claims raised during the debate that he exaggerates numbers or misstates facts.

“I don’t exaggerate on any of it,” he said, insisting he has documentation to support his statements. He argued that attempts to challenge his figures were designed to cut off his explanations.

Bottoms and Kirkmeyer have said they will not support Marx if he won the primary. Marx has said he would support both his opponents in the general election.

With just over a week before the June 30 primary, Bottoms said he’s energized by the pace. After finishing his swing through the Western Slope, he plans to head across the Eastern Plains before turning immediately toward the general election stage.

“I am loving this trip,” he said. “I am loving connecting with the people all across Colorado.”