Colorado Republicans have chosen their nominee to succeed Governor Jared Polis, and his name is Victor Marx, a self-described “high-risk humanitarian,” seventh-degree black belt in “Cajun Karate,” ministry leader, and Marine veteran whose extraordinary life story began falling apart the moment a local news anchor asked him to back any of it up.
The Associated Press called the race on July 9, and CNN’s Decision Desk noted that Marx would defeat two far more experienced rivals, state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer and state Rep. Scott Bottoms, both of whom have said they won’t endorse him as the party’s nominee. He’ll face Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser in November in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican governor in more than two decades.
To understand why his own party’s runners-up are refusing to line up behind him, you have to watch what happened in May.
The Interview
In late May, 9News anchor Kyle Clark sat down with Marx for a 30-minute interview on Next with Kyle Clark — conducted, notably, at Marx’s own Colorado Springs training facility, which Marx refers to as his “compound.”
Clark asked Marx about his claim that he had performed more than 130 missions across 30 countries rescuing trafficking victims. Marx denied ever saying it, “it doesn’t sound like me,” until Clark read him his own August 2024 post on X stating exactly that. Asked to name even one of the 30 countries, Marx couldn’t. His explanation: “I don’t memorize every place that we’ve gone. That’s why I got a passport.”
It didn’t stop there. Marx’s campaign website claimed his teams had “served over 45,000 women and children, many rescued from captivity,” a claim that quietly disappeared from the site. Marx suggested an independent contractor may have written it. When Clark asked how many people he had actually rescued, Marx refused to give a number, citing “security reasons,” before finally offering: “I would say it’s more than one and less than a bunch.”
Clark also pressed Marx on his claim that his team helped rescue 43 missing children in a Florida operation. The U.S. Marshals, who ran that operation, named 25 partner agencies — and Marx’s ministry wasn’t among them. Marx’s response was that his organization doesn’t require credit.
Then there’s the airstrike. Marx has claimed that, as a civilian, he once called in a U.S. military airstrike that killed roughly 70 ISIS fighters. Asked to explain how a civilian could possibly do that, he declined — again citing security.
“Does It Matter?”
The most jaw-dropping exchange concerned Marx’s foundational story: that his abusive stepfather forced him to shoot and kill a man when Marx was seven years old. Clark asked a question that rarely comes up in gubernatorial races: is that the only person you’ve ever killed?
Marx fell silent for more than ten seconds before answering: “Well, I would say, as a child, yes. Without question.” He then added that he’d “been in other situations where, you know, possibly people or persons died as a result of me defending myself in other countries.” Pressed on whether he’d killed people as an adult, Marx replied: “Does it matter?”
Governor Polis, for his part, responded to the viral clips with a quip: “I have killed zero people, and you can take that to the bank.”
The Debate and the Dog
At the lone primary debate Marx attended, Clark asked him directly how voters should decide “whether you’ve lived one of the most extraordinary lives in human history, or whether you’re a liar and a fraud.” Marx’s answer, in part, involved pointing to his small dog, Reagan, claiming she had been with him in Syria and Iraq, and asking Clark, “So is she lying, too?”
Clark’s reply: “Well, the dog’s not running for governor.”
His Republican opponents were less charitable. Bottoms, an evangelical pastor, called Marx a con man who “lied to me personally quite a few times.” Kirkmeyer called him a fraud to his face: “I can’t trust you. You’re unfit. You’re unqualified.”
Follow the Money
Marx’s campaign operation has drawn scrutiny of its own. His campaign raised $1.66 million in four months — significantly more than any primary rival — but spent 89 cents of every dollar as it came in, with nearly three-quarters of expenditures going to two fundraising firms and consultants. His contribution filings contained so many errors that the campaign asked the Secretary of State to “un-file” and replace the report entirely — a request the office granted while noting it was “not a common practice.”
Why It Worked Anyway
None of this stopped Marx. If anything, it may have helped. Colorado Sun columnist Mike Littwin predicted as much days after the interview aired, writing that plenty of GOP voters would agree with Marx’s own assessment that he “crushed it.”
Marx’s whole brand — the “Dangerous Gentleman” persona, the world’s-fastest-gun-disarmer routine, the war stories that can’t be verified, the exorcisms he performs over the phone — is engineered for an audience that has been trained to treat scrutiny itself as the enemy. It’s tough-guy mythology packaged for the podcast-bro ecosystem, and when journalists asked basic questions, Marx told his supporters exactly what that ecosystem has taught them to believe: “Our opponents have simply attacked me the entire time.”
A former assistant to James Dobson at Focus on the Family, endorsed by Rep. Lauren Boebert, Marx now carries the Republican banner into a general election against an attorney general with a long public record. Colorado voters will get to decide which of those two things matters more: a record, or a story.
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