How Low Can Victor Marx Go? The Douglas County Republican Floor and the 2010 Precedent

This is an opinion piece. Every number comes from an official document we read and cite. The scenarios are our arithmetic, shown so you can check it, and we say at the end what would prove us wrong.

Douglas County has not loved a Republican nominee for governor in a decade, but it has kept voting for one. Walker Stapleton took 56 percent here in 2018. Heidi Ganahl held the county by 1,290 votes in 2022. The question this November is not whether the county stays red comfortably. It is how far the Republican share can fall, and whether anybody can see a floor. Our read: Victor Marx could post the lowest Republican share for governor in Douglas County since Dan Maes in 2010, and the county could hand a Democrat a plurality for the first time since at least 2010.

The four numbers that set the floor

We could source four elections for governor here. Beauprez took 59.07 percent of the Douglas County vote in 2014, Stapleton 56.12 in 2018, Ganahl 49.46 in 2022. Read those three in order and the shape is not subtle: a drop of 9.61 points across two elections, an average of 4.81 per cycle, the second step steeper than the first.

Then there is 2010, which sits nowhere near that line. It is the only sourced instance of a Republican collapse here, and so the only precedent for the number we are about to model.

2010 is the precedent, and it is a strange one

2010 was not a year Douglas County went soft on Republicans. It was a year the county abandoned the Republican. Tancredo, a former congressman running outside the party, finished first here with 47.96 percent, Hickenlooper second with 40.11, Maes third at 11.05. The conservative majority did not evaporate. It moved to a line that did not say Republican on it.

That cuts two ways. It is evidence this county will leave the Republican line when it does not want the nominee. It is also why we are careful with the second half of our thesis: in all four elections we sourced, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022, the Democratic nominee for governor never finished first here. We make no claim about any year before 2010, because we have not sourced one.

Three scenarios, with the arithmetic shown

All three hold the 2022 county electorate fixed: 190,690 votes cast for governor, with the minor lines taking 1.76 percent, which is what Kevin Ruskusky, Danielle Neuschwanger and Paul Fiorino took together that year. Only the leading names move.

Scenario one, the trend alone. Extend the 2014 to 2022 slide one more cycle. 49.46 minus 4.81 equals 44.65 percent for Marx. Minor lines stay at 1.76. Give the remainder to Phil Weiser: 100 minus 44.65 minus 1.76 equals 53.59. Weiser leads by 8.94 points, and Marx has posted the lowest Republican share here since 2010 without any third candidate doing anything at all.

Scenario two, the trend plus Lopez at 8 percent. Greg Lopez is on this ballot as an alternative for voters who dislike Marx but will not vote left, so assume his vote leans that way: two-thirds out of the Republican column, one-third out of the Democratic one. Two-thirds of 8 is 5.33, so Marx goes from 44.65 to 39.32 percent. One-third of 8 is 2.67, so Weiser goes from 53.59 to 50.92. Lopez 8.00, minor lines 1.76, and the four add to exactly 100.00. Marx's 39.32 percent is 74,980 votes, 19,332 fewer than Ganahl won here four years ago.

Scenario three, the 2010 shape. Transplant 2010's proportions onto this ballot. Lopez at Tancredo's 47.96, Weiser at Hickenlooper's 40.11, minor lines at 1.76. That leaves Marx 100 minus 47.96 minus 40.11 minus 1.76, which is 10.17 percent, right at Maes. Notice what else happens: the Democrat finishes second. If the Republican share here really falls to 2010 depths, it is because a conservative who is not the nominee carried the county outright, not because a Democrat did.

What 2010 would actually require

The gap between scenario two and scenario three is the honest part of this piece. To fall from 39.32 percent to Maes's 11.05, Marx would have to shed another 28.27 points, roughly 53,900 votes out of 190,690. Lopez, on the other side, would have to reach 47.96 percent, six times the 8 percent we gave him.

We are not predicting that, and we cannot. We found no public poll of this race. The only Douglas County number that exists for Lopez is the June 2024 congressional special, which he carried here 45,311 to Trisha Calvarese's 35,088, 52.30 percent to 40.50, a margin of 11.80 points. That is real local strength in a low-turnout June, not evidence of 48 percent in a November general. Treat scenario two as the live case and scenario three as the tail; our analysis of what Lopez changes here runs the same arithmetic from his side.

Why Marx starts below the trend line, not on it

The trend extension assumes an ordinary nominee. This county already told us Marx is not that. In the June Republican primary, Douglas County gave Kirkmeyer 21,950 votes to Marx's 19,315, 42.69 percent to 37.56, with Bottoms at 19.45. He lost the county by 2,635 votes inside his own party, and 62.44 percent of its Republican primary voters picked someone else. As our governor race page reports, neither Kirkmeyer nor Bottoms has endorsed him since.

Then there is the ballot. Seven pairs are printed on the governor line here, so a Republican who will not vote for Marx and will not vote for Weiser has five other pairs to choose from. Our profile of Marx has his platform and record; the county's longer registration drift is in our piece on whether Douglas County is turning blue.

The case against us

Three ways this is wrong. The trend extension is the weak link: three data points are a line, not a law. Marx could consolidate, and a Kirkmeyer endorsement in October would hit the trend assumption and the Lopez assumption at once. And our two-thirds split is an assumption, not a measurement; if Lopez's 8 percent splits evenly, Marx lands at 40.65 and Weiser at 49.59.

The strongest objection is the simplest. Suppose Marx merely matches Ganahl's 49.46 here instead of continuing the slide. With Lopez at 8 percent and the same two-thirds split, Marx is 49.46 minus 5.33, or 44.13, and Weiser is 48.78 minus 2.67, or 46.11. Weiser still finishes first, but by 1.98 points instead of 11.60, and the floor story dissolves into an ordinary close county.

More: every race and measure on your ballot and the November ballot guide. We do not endorse candidates. Campaigns can send corrections to hello@discoverdougco.com.