Colorado · Governor
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · fundamentals only, no polls
Who is running?
Phil Weiser (Democratic), Victor Marx (Republican), Erik Mulder (Libertarian), Erik Underwood (Approval Voting), Greg Lopez (Independent), Jeff Peckman (Unity), Stephen T. Hamilton (Constitution).
The race, in brief
Colorado elects a governor on November 3, 2026, in an open seat: Democratic governor Jared Polis is ineligible for a third consecutive term. The text says Republicans have not won a Colorado governor's race since 2002 nor any statewide office since 2016. The state profile on file records a college share of 0.4, a Hispanic share of 0.2 and a median age of 37.5.
The Democratic nominee is attorney general Phil Weiser, who beat U.S. senator Michael Bennet in the June 30 primary, 56.9% to 43.1%; his running mate is Jefferson County commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper. The Republican nominee is Victor Marx, described as a ministry leader, who won a three-way primary with 39.9% to Barbara Kirkmeyer's 39.4% and Scott Bottoms's 20.8%, a margin of 208,455 votes to 205,990. His running mate is George Markert. Former U.S. representative Greg Lopez is running as an Independent, and Unity, American Constitution, Libertarian and Approval Voting candidates are also on the list.
All seven raters listed call the race D; the dates run from September 3, 2025 (Inside Elections) to September 23, 2026 (Decision Desk HQ). The text lists no general-election polls and no fundraising figures.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Incumbent Democratic governor Jared Polis is ineligible to seek re-election to a third consecutive term.
Phil Weiser, attorney general of Colorado (2019–present) **Running mate: Lesley Dahlkemper, Jefferson County commissioner
Victor Marx, ministry leader **Running mate: George Markert, AI strategic advisor
Phil Weiser, attorney general of Colorado (2019–present)
Victor Marx, ministry leader
candidate: Phil Weiser votes: 505,444 percentage: 56.9
The Cook Political Report D September 10, 2026 Decision Desk HQ D September 23, 2026
candidate: Victor Marx votes: 208,455 percentage: 39.9
Greg Lopez, former U.S. representative from 4 (2024–2025) and candidate for governor in 2018 and 2022 (previously ran as a Republican)
*Stephen Hamilton (American Constitution) *Eric Mulder (Libertarian) *Erik Underwood (Approval Voting)
The Republican Party has not won a gubernatorial election in Colorado since 2002 nor a statewide office since 2016.
Not in the source: facts.forecast is empty: no model nowcast or election-day row for this race.; No general-election polls (Weiser vs. Marx) in the text; only primary polls.; No fundraising figures for any candidate.; No state presidential results or previous governor's race margins are given.; Rater calls are given only as 'D', with no Lean/Likely/Safe detail; the Inside Elections date (September 3, 2025) precedes the primary.; Marx's background is given only as 'ministry leader'.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as f72550576e20; written by claude-opus-5-5 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | D+5.4 | D+13.9 | D+11.3 |
A shift of 5.9 points toward the Democrats from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 44.7% | 34.0% | +10.7 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 65.6% | 66.3% | -0.6 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 3.8% | 10.1% | -6.3 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 22.2% | 12.9% | +9.4 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 3.2% | 4.4% | -1.2 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 9.6% | 9.6% | -0.0 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 37.5 | 39.1 | -1.58 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $92,470 | $77,633 | $+14,837 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $502,200 | $314,132 | $+188,068 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 66.3% | 67.4% | -1.0 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 4.5% | 4.8% | -0.3 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 2.8% | 3.0% | -0.2 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 18.8% | 12.3% | +6.5 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 8.0% | 11.1% | -3.1 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 25.5% | 32.1% | -6.6 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 2.5% | 2.6% | -0.1 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 4.0% | 2.9% | +1.2 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.46 | 0.47 | -0.01 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 4.2% | 4.0% | +0.2 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | +0.1 pts | -0.1 pts | +0.2 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | -0.3 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.2 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $83,055 | $70,662 | $+12,393 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 35.5% | 32.4% | +3.2 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 13.6% | 19.4% | -5.7 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 4.0% | 6.1% | -2.1 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 2.8% | 4.4% | -1.6 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 2.8% | 3.8% | -1.0 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.4% | 0.6% | -0.2 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.2% | 0.3% | -0.1 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 0.8% | 0.9% | -0.1 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.3% | 1.5% | -0.2 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.3% | 1.2% | +0.2 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Has anyone polled it?
We hold no published poll of this general election. A search of aggregators, pollster releases, university polls and local news on 2 October found none (primary polls exist for some races and are not this contest). That is what we could find, not proof that no poll has been conducted. When one is published it enters the poll model and this page gains a nowcast.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Margins and probabilities are for Phil Weiser. With no polls, this is the fundamentals forecast alone: the state's own past results for this office and for president, its demographics, economy, religion and government employment, the candidates' incumbency, experience and money, and the national environment for this midterm.
How wide is the range?
In 8 of 10 simulations the margin falls between +5 and +39 points. The spread is the fundamentals model's own measured error (sd 13.4 points), not a guess: a forecast without polls is uncertain and is shown that way.
How accurate is a fundamentals-only forecast?
Tested on past races without letting it see them: across 175 Senate and governor races in 2016-2022 it missed the final margin by 8.3 points on average, and by 6.7 points across 35 races in 2024. Our poll-based forecast missed by 5.4 on the same races. Most races it is used for here are lopsided enough that an 8-point miss would not change the winner.
Where did every number come from?
Run 37c65dcd, single_race_latent/0.8.1, as of 2026-10-01 23:02 UTC, basis: ground-up prior only, no polls.