Victor Marx, the drama-and-satire-generating Republican candidate for governor, announced today that he’s picked retired Colonel George Markert as his running mate for lieutenant governor.
On a right-wing radio show in July of last year, Markert said the first six months of Trump’s term were “extremely aggressive” and “exactly what this country needed.”
Trump’s “progress has been phenomenal, if not historic,” Markert said on air.
Asked in September, 2025, by the Colorado Times Recorder if he disagreed with anything Trump has done to date, Markert said, “Not right now, no.”
He said he would have voted yes on the Big Beautiful Bill if he’d been in the Senate. The bill, later signed by Trump, slashed Medicaid by about $1 trillion and cut taxes primarily for wealthy people and corporations.
Markert was competing in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate at the time, and his campaign website described him as “a constitutional conservative and proud supporter of President Trump’s America First agenda,” promising in a video to “finish what DOGE started.”
During his Senate campaign, he was endorsed by former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who’s known as one of the most right-wing political figures in Colorado, characterizing Tancredo as a “great man.”
He shares Tancredo’s hardline stance on immigration; on Faceook, he called for “deport[ing] every illegal alien with no legal right to remain” and defended ICE for shooting Renee Good in Minneapolis.
“It just comes down to two things, security and prosperity for the American people,” Markert said. “I believe that the administration wants that, and I want that.”
He added in September that his background as a 30-year Marine Corps veteran with four master’s degrees — who has handled “massive budgets” — is appealing.
“What I’m doing here is bringing leadership, integrity, and moral courage to Congress, and I want to be the person who goes in there and steps up,” Markert said, “to make sure all Americans’ lives improve, and they get the support they need from their government. … It’s about service. That’s why I do this. I have no other aspiration than to serve the American people.”
Via text, the Colorado Democratic Party offered this statement from Chair Shad Murib: “Victor Marx could not have made a more toxic pick for Lieutenant Governor. George Markert has tied himself so tightly to Trump, his disastrous war in Iran, and to far-right figures like Tom Tancredo that it’s clear Republicans want to bring the failing, cost-raising MAGA agenda to the Governor’s Office.”
UPDATE 7/31: Information on Marx’s immigration stance was added.
