Marine veteran Victor Marx is angling to clinch the Republican Party’s primary nomination next week as he campaigns to become Colorado’s next governor and flip the seat blue. Polls indicate Marx holds a decisive lead over GOP rivals State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer and state Rep. Scott Bottoms ahead of the June 30 primary election, as the field of candidates vie to succeed outgoing Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO). Both Kirkmeyer and Bottoms say they won’t support Marx’s campaign against Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) or Attorney General Phil Weiser, if the Republican wins the nomination, framing him as an unqualified “con man” who tells “tall tales.”Marx, 60, is endorsed by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). He has positioned himself as the outsider in the group, as his gubernatorial bid marks his first run for public office. A ministry leader from Colorado Springs, Marx says he was abused as a child and fell into drugs before joining the Marines, and later started an international ministry designed to rescue “women and children who have been held captive by traffickers and other abusers.”
He garnered attention during his campaign for stating that his stepfather forced him to kill a man when he was a 7-year-old child. Marx told CPR News that the incident occurred in a rural area of Mendenhall, Mississippi. “Yes, I was made to shoot a man who I watched get buried, and that affected me deeply most of my life,” he said. “Which is why I went to 123 visits to a trauma specialist. And I’ve been on Depakote, Depakine, Prozac, so I’ve been on the medications. But I think I’m living proof that you can rise above being a victim and be victorious.”While he was politically unknown before launching his gubernatorial bid, Marx built a notable profile as the founder of All Things Possible and amassed a large following on social media. The nonprofit humanitarian ministry leads trauma response operations, along with “high-risk” rescue missions helping thousands of women and children trafficked in Northern Africa and the Middle Eastern nations, such as Syria, and delivers dried milk and toys to war-torn, impoverished nations such as Iraq and Haiti, according to Marx.Critics say Marx has intentionally overblown rescue numbers and overstated his role in helping victims. “Here’s the total number of kids I’ve rescued: not enough,” Marx said when pressed on the issue during a gubernatorial debate on June 2. “For folks who want to pigeonhole me on stuff that will absolutely cause safety issues for our teams still out there, I won’t do it.“I can’t help it if I’ve had an extraordinary life,” he said. “I’m an ordinary fella, and starting from my childhood all the way to now, me standing up on a stage running for governor.” What are his policies?
