Phil Weiser’s victory over Victor Marx in Colorado governor’s race will be among the largest ever

Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser’s win over Republican ministry leader Victor Marx on Tuesday in Colorado’s gubernatorial race is likely to be one of the largest in state history. 

Weiser was beating Marx by more than 27 percentage points Wednesday morning. Weiser had 60.9% of the vote to Marx’s 33.6%.

Votes are still being counted — and will be for many days. But if the margin holds, it would be the fifth-biggest victory in a Colorado gubernatorial race in the state’s 150-year history. 

At the very least, Weiser will have won by the biggest margin of a Colorado gubernatorial candidate since 2002, when Republican Gov. Bill Owens won reelection over Democrat Rollie Heath by 29 percentage points. That was the third-largest margin of victory in a Colorado gubernatorial race.

In 2022, current Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, beat University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl, a Republican, by 19.3 percentage points. Polis’ margin of victory was 11th on the list. 

Weiser’s margin of victory over Marx is unlikely to fall below Polis’ 2022 margin, which at the time was considered astonishing. 

See the chart below for the previous record margins of victory for Colorado gubernatorial candidates: