This story was first published at CPR News.
DENVER | Republican gubernatorial candidates state Rep. Scott Bottoms and state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer faced off Thursday in their first televised debate ahead of the June 30 primary election.
During the hour-long live broadcast sponsored by CPR News, Denver7 and The Denver Post, the candidates made their cases on their leadership styles, reasons for running, how they would address Colorado’s budget, Democratic control of state government and the economy. The third GOP candidate, Victor Marx, declined to participate.
Kirkmeyer has deep roots in the state as a 4th-generation Coloradan. She lives in Weld County now and grew up on a dairy farm, helping feed calves by 5 years old. She served as a Weld County commissioner for two decades and has been a strong proponent of the oil and gas industry.
In recent years, she has said a top goal is to balance quality of life with the need to bring businesses and high-paying jobs to the state and make Colorado more affordable. Elected to the State Senate in 2020, she is serving on the Legislature’s powerful Joint Budget Committee, which crafts the state budget. She said Democrats have mismanaged state government and voters want change.
“They have just made a mess of our state. We’re unaffordable, we’re unsafe. People are telling us, Unaffiliateds, Independents, Republicans and Democrats, everyone is saying this state is going in the wrong direction. They are ready for new leadership. In fact, they’re begging for new leadership,” Kirkmeyer said.
Rep. Bottoms just wrapped up his fourth year serving in the Colorado House and lives in El Paso County. He’s also the senior pastor at The Church at Briargate in Colorado Springs. During his time at the Capitol, he’s been one of the most conservative voices on issues such as parental rights and pushing back against reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights, and against the Democratic control of state government.
Bottoms has said as governor, public safety would be a major focus and is a key reason he’s running for the office. He said he wants Colorado to put pedophiles in jail for life and he ran a bill at the Capitol to put sex traffickers in jail for life, which did not pass. He said he doesn’t shy away from social issues and said he opposes Colorado’s spending priorities. Bottoms also said voters want change.
“They’re sick and tired of being scared to walk outside. They’re sick and tired of everything. Just controlling every single aspect of their life, including all the taxes and regulation,” he said.
Here are six takeaways from the debate:
Areas of disagreement
Kirkmeyer and Bottoms have a lot of differences when it comes to policy and leadership approaches. Bottoms said the state’s elections aren’t secure; Kirkmeyer thinks they are secure. He doesn’t want Unaffiliated voters to participate in the GOP primary elections; she does. They also disagree on how Colorado prioritizes spending. Bottoms said Colorado is mismanaging millions of dollars, and he voted against the state budget. Kirkmeyer not only supported it, she helped write it.
“We have hundreds of millions of dollars right now that are going to illegal immigrant abortions and transgender surgeries. You can find these through the budget line items,” Bottoms said.
Kirkmeyer said Bottoms’ assertion was not true.
“Representative Bottoms, point to me which lines exactly in the budget that he’s talking about because they aren’t there,” she said. “What he talks about with regard to cutting certain things, and that we’re funding transgender and abortions for undocumented immigrants. Certainly not hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Kirkmeyer said she works across the aisle at the Capitol and pointed to her bills with Democrats to lower property taxes.
“We’re in the minority both in the Senate and the House, and you have to work across the aisle to get anything done,” she said.
Bottoms has only passed one bill during his time in the legislature to create the “In God We Trust” license plate. None of his other policies have gained traction.
“Democrats have an agreement that if I run a bill, my name’s on it, they won’t pass it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s good.”
Working with the federal government
Kirkmeyer said she would try to work with the Trump Administration, but disagrees with President Donald Trump’s decision to move Space Command out of Colorado Springs, to deny disaster emergency declarations in Colorado and his veto of a bipartisan bill to fund the Arkansas Valley water project to bring clean drinking water to Southeast Colorado.
Kirkmeyer said she would hope that Trump would remember “we’re all his constituents as well” and start working with the state better. But she said Democrats don’t make things easier with lawsuit after lawsuit against the administration.
Bottoms did not list any specific disagreement with Trump and said the president has done some pretty amazing things.
“He’s the one trying to stop mail-in balloting, which is the easiest way to cheat in any election,” he said.
Audits of Colorado elections and paper ballot counting machines have not found fraud.
Bottoms said the state needs to stand on its own two feet and that he would enact a Department of Government Efficiency plan in Colorado.
“I am a reformer. I do not mind looking at people in power,” he said. “That’s why when we DOGE, we’re going to DOGE Republicans and Democrats, but if Trump does things that are good for Colorado, I support it. If he doesn’t, I won’t, but I don’t have Trump derangement syndrome and I’m not going after Trump at every sentence.”
Bottoms blasted the Democratic candidates for governor, U.S Sen. Michael Bennet and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, for focusing too much on Trump
“The only thing they have is ‘we hate Trump,’” he said. “They don’t have policies; they don’t have anything that’s moving forward. They’re definitely not going to DOGE the state and try to uncover corruption.”
Yes or No questions
During a lightning round of questions, the candidates agreed on most points. Neither support the dismantling of NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. Both agree that Donald Trump is not eligible to run for another term as president. Neither think it’s fair for states to redistrict for partisan gains ahead of the mid-term elections. Both said, as governor, they would work to bring Space Command back to Colorado.
Their one point of disagreement was on the 2020 presidential election. When asked if Joe Biden won the election, Bottoms answered “no,” while Kirkmeyer said “yes.”
Audits, recounts, and lawsuits found no credible evidence that the 2020 election was stolen and, in fact, showed the opposite: that it was a free and fair election.
Addressing the state budget
The candidates differed sharply on the state’s budget issues. Throughout the debate, Bottoms charged that the state is stealing hundreds of millions of dollars through mismanagement of the state budget. That clearly struck a nerve with Kirkmeyer, a member of the Joint Budget Committee that’s constitutionally responsible for delivering a balanced budget in each legislative session.
“We have a lot of things that through the budget have been mishandled greatly,” Bottoms said. “There are some things when it comes to healthcare, Medicaid, Medicare, that we have to protect. We actually have a constitutional obligation to protect these things. But the problem is, those are also being misused and there’s corruption within those…The problem with our budget is it’s not balanced. I voted against it four years in a row because one day it’s balanced, the next day we owe $880 million. That is not a balanced budget just because it looks like it on paper and everybody signs off, that’s not balanced.”
Kirkmeyer shifted some of the blame onto the administration of Gov. Jared Polis, but also went after Bottoms for some of his claims.
“I mean, there probably is some corruption, there is going to be some fraud, but the problem is this administration is one of the worst-managed administrations there is,” she said. “But it is a balanced budget as required under our Constitution – just because in your checkbook, if the money goes up and down within your checkbook or within your savings account, doesn’t mean that the budget is not balanced, because it is balanced.
“There are not hundreds of millions of dollars that are being done in a corrupt manner that are going from one program to another program – that can’t happen. And Representative Bottoms has said in many cases that he’s able to cut billions of dollars out of the budget. Yet I have not seen one amendment from him that actually cuts anything out of the budget.”
Boosting the state’s economy
When it comes to the economy, Kirkmeyer said she knows how to govern and get the job done and pull back on regulations in areas she feels the state has gone too far, such as energy.
“We need to create an environment where people want to come here and invest in our state and bring jobs to our state and pull back on regulations,” she said.
Kirkmeyer also said she wants to focus on a top issue for voters: making the state affordable.
“I have lowered property taxes, I have cut regulations, I’ve cut spending, made my county more affordable, led it to zero debt and also have been working on bills that I’ve passed that have also made us more affordable here,” she said.
Bottoms agreed that Colorado needs to reduce regulations on businesses and it is expensive. But he said corruption needs to be tackled first.
“Before we can have affordability. We’ve got to deregulate, and we’ve got to DOGE every single thing in the state of Colorado,” he said.
Bottoms also said he would focus on reducing overall taxes.
“I believe that property tax, I believe income tax is also a big issue. Taxes in general, we’re six most regulated state in the United States,” he said.
Addressing social issues
For Bottoms, “social issues” largely came down to pedophilia, human trafficking and trans rights.
“I believe very deeply that the people of Colorado are tired of where we are in this state and this is both sides of the aisle,” he said. “This is unaffiliated voters, this is everyone. They’re tired of the bigger issues that have to do with boys and girls sports and those kinds of things. I do not shy away from the social issues.
“I don’t believe that this is just about the budget and potholes. I believe it’s about some much bigger issues … I’ve tried to pass many bills that have specifically to do with that leadership, grooming our kids, trafficking, kids, parental consent, pedophilia, all of these different subjects. I’ve stood strong on those for four years as a representative and as a governor, I’ll continue to provide top-tier leadership.”
He’s also alleged that Colorado has a ring of pedophiles running through the statehouse and governor’s office.
“There’s no way I can prove this right now because I’m not a federal investigator. I’m also not a prosecutor. But we’ll see. And here’s the thing is even after, if I somehow do not get elected governor, I’m not going to let this go. We’re going to go after this. I’ve been fighting pedophilia in this state for years.”
A moderator pointed out that Bottoms admitted he has no way that he can prove his allegations at this time, which he disagreed with.
Kirkmeyer discussed whether cell phones in the classroom should be restricted.
“I personally think that cell phones probably should be banned,” she said. “I think there might be some situations where there could be a case where there would be cell phones, especially in the case of emergencies, that type of thing. But in the classroom, having them on, I think it’s a distraction.”
She said cell phones can be a huge distraction. Bottoms agreed and said the state also needs to work on regulating how AI is used for minors.
“You own your retinas, fingerprints, your voice, your face, you own you, your person. And we’ve got to be able to regulate that when it comes into the AI space because this is what we’re seeing in the school districts, is take a picture of a young lady and then you put all of this other stuff to it using her face, but nudity and all of this. And this is a major big issue,” he said.