Colorado Republicans Harbor Down-Ballot Fears Over Gubernatorial Nominee Who Says He Saw Demons With Reptilian Eyes

Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Victor Marx, is no stranger to extraordinary claims. He says he has rescued 45,000 women and children from war zones, fought off 10 armed soldiers with a plastic blade, and performed exorcisms on people he watched transform before his eyes — one growing pointed ears “like a troll;” another, a teenage girl, turning “reptilian.” Now, as the general election approaches, Republicans across the state are asking a harder question: What does his nomination mean for everyone else on the ballot? The concern is widespread and, among some party veterans, barely concealed.“We’ve nominated a guy who can’t keep his fantastical stories straight,” the former Republican state party chairman, Dick Wadhams, recently wrote in a column. “Frankly, the campaign for governor was lost the day that he won the primary.” Mr. Wadhams, who has spent his career working alongside Senators Bill Armstrong, Hank Brown, and Wayne Allard, as well as Governor Bill Owens, said he cannot bring himself to vote for Mr. Marx. “These were men of integrity. They were clear mainstream conservative Republicans. They won tough elections. To me, Victor Marx is the antithesis of those candidates,” he wrote.A 94-year-old former state lawmaker and the first woman to serve as majority leader in both legislative chambers, Norma Anderson, went further. This summer, she changed her voter registration from Republican to unaffiliated — something she once described as unimaginable. “Abe Lincoln’s turning over in his grave,” she told the Sentinel Colorado. “It’s not a Republican Party anymore.”Mr. Marx, a Marine veteran, Christian Nationalist evangelist, and self-described “high-risk missionary,” secured the Republican nomination in June after narrowly defeating a state senator, Barbara Kirkmeyer, and others in the primary. His campaign has been defined less by policy than by a series of dramatic personal narratives. In his 2024 book, “The Dangerous Gentleman,” Mr. Marx describes battling demons in Iraq, watching a captured ISIS commander’s muscles bulge and ears grow sharp, and encountering a teenage girl in a youth prison who he says “turned reptilian” and smelled of sulfur. When pressed by Denver’s 9News reporter Kyle Clark on how many people he had killed, Mr. Marx declined to answer directly.With every statewide seat on the ballot in November, Republicans worry that Mr. Marx — rated a near-certain loss by Cook Political Report, which calls the governor’s race “solid D” — could drag down competitive down-ticket races. A first-term GOP congressman, Gabe Evans, whose Eighth Congressional District seat north of Denver is rated a tossup, called for party unity but declined to address concerns about Mr. Marx’s impact directly. “Democrats have an absolutely abysmal track record over their last eight years,” he told Colorado Public Radio.Not all Republicans are walking away. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert endorsed Mr. Marx and called on independent GOP candidate Greg Lopez to drop out. Mr. Marx’s running mate is George Markert, 30-year Marine veteran who defends him: “He has a love for his critics, his detractors, just as much as he does for his supporters.”For Montrose County Commissioner Sean Pond, none of the supernatural stories are the issue — the absence of policy substance is. “I don’t care about your stories,” Mr. Pond said. “I want to know if you have a clear understanding of what we do to tackle the number one problem in Colorado, which is the affordability crisis,” he told CPR.

Colorado Republicans Harbor Down-Ballot Fears Over Gubernatorial Nominee Who Says He Saw Demons With Reptilian Eyes

Colorado Republicans Harbor Down-Ballot Fears Over Gubernatorial Nominee Who Says He Saw Demons With Reptilian Eyes

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