Editor’s note: This story was adapted from an in-depth report by The Denver Post on the Democratic primary candidates for governor, which was originally published in November, and from other recent Post coverage.
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Phil Weiser, elected as the state’s top attorney in 2018 and now term-limited, has had much of his tenure dominated by legal fights with the Trump administration.
In the one-on-one Democratic primary for Colorado governor on June 30, his appeal to voters against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is that he offers comparatively new blood, along with legal pugnacity in the Trump 2.0 era. He has sued or joined lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s administration 66 times since early 2025, claiming wins or favorable rulings of some kind in 37 of those cases and losses in eight. The rest are awaiting rulings.
Weiser, 58, first won public office as part of the 2018 blue wave that landed Democrats in all of Colorado’s top offices. Before his election, Weiser served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and as the dean of the University of Colorado Law School.
Weiser launched his campaign in early January 2025, just before Trump was sworn in for a second term, and before any other prominent Democrats tossed their hats in the ring. Affordability, housing shortages, climate change and the youth mental health crisis dominated his out-of-the-gate message.
Politicos have long joked that AG stands as much for “aspiring governor” as attorney general. For Weiser, himself restricted from running for the same post again and seeing fellow Democrats sitting in U.S. House or Senate seats that he might otherwise consider, the governor’s office was an obvious next move.
At a fall event, Weiser said Colorado was at an inflection point. It must both protect its values from “the craziness in Washington,” he said, and forge its own path forward.
“There is lower trust in our institutions right now (and) less ability to create solutions to get things done,” Weiser said. “… We have to find a way to meet this moment, create a similar can-do spirit — where we’re going to try a bunch of different things. Not all of it is going to work, but we’re going to try something.”
Weiser’s record as the state’s top attorney quickly swayed former Gov. Roy Romer, who led Colorado from 1987 to 1999, to believe in his higher aspirations.
“Phil, I’ve watched for years. He’s a good man,” Romer said, “and I just think he’ll make a great governor. Bennet, he’s my senator — and I hope he stays my senator.”
‘This campaign comes down to a choice’
That sentiment — Bennet for Senate, and Weiser for governor — has been catchy enough among the attorney general’s supporters to make it onto bumper stickers.
“This campaign comes down to a choice,” Weiser said during a May debate co-sponsored by The Denver Post. “The candidate of Colorado or the candidate who is from the Washington, D.C. establishment.”
Weiser, who grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., has spent much of his career bouncing between Colorado and Washington, D.C.
After graduating from New York University’s law school in 1994, Weiser worked as a clerk for 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge David Ebel in Denver. He headed back east to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg later in the decade, and he returned to Colorado in 1999 to join the faculty at the University of Colorado Law School.
He moved east again to work in the Obama administration, and he returned for a final time to serve as dean of the CU law school.
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When Weiser turned to elected office eight years ago, he faced a tough Democratic primary. He edged out state Rep. Joe Salazar by fewer than 5,000 votes to win the nomination. His two general election wins, in 2018 and 2022, were less dramatic affairs amid Colorado’s overall political shift leftward. He won in 2018 by more than 6 percentage points and in 2022 by more than 10.
As a gubernatorial candidate, Weiser has set goals of halving the state’s housing shortage and banning algorithmic rent setting by large corporations — a measure vetoed by outgoing Gov. Jared Polis in 2025. He also wants to “Trump-Proof” Colorado and launch a “ColoradoCorps” service program for 18- to 26-year-olds looking at careers in firefighting, law enforcement, education and more.
Former U.S. Rep. David Skaggs, who represented a Colorado district from 1987 to 1999, crossed paths with Weiser at the CU law school after he left Congress. He was “struck from the get-go about how razor sharp his mind is, what a good lawyer he is and what an agreeable fellow he is,” Skaggs said.
But now, he points to Weiser’s willingness to “take on the Trump administration, both Trump 1 and Trump 2, and really fight for important values and legal principles.”
Weiser has been in the thick of state government for more than seven years now, and there’s no better preparation for managing it as governor than spending the better part of a decade lawyering for it, Skaggs said.
Former Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, in an interview last fall, hailed Weiser as “a tremendous attorney general” and “one of the smartest people I know.” But he has backed Bennet in the gubernatorial primary, arguing Bennet has a broader base of experience, including his time working in local government as chief of staff to then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.
Hancock said such experience gave Bennet a deeper understanding of issues like local control and how to bring local governments along — without wielding a stick, like recent zoning battles with the state have entailed.
“Mike will have a better understanding of those issues,” Hancock said. “He knows the responsibility of local governments, particularly city councils, and how to negotiate and work those things through. I think he’ll be a little more collaborative in that sense because of that knowledge.”
Weiser’s work as attorney general
Weiser argues his work as attorney general has prepared him to be governor.
While his tenure has turned on legal fights with both Trump administrations, he’s also overseen the distribution of tens of millions of dollars from settlements during the opioid crisis. He challenged the merger of the Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains — the parent companies, respectively, of King Soopers and Safeway — which was called off after judges blocked it. He’s backed consumer protection litigation, and his office has been front and center in negotiations over the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the state and the broader West.
Weiser has campaigned as a bit of an underdog to the better-known Bennet, hoping he has a fighter’s chance as people pay more attention to the race.
At a northern Denver union hall in January, Weiser invoked his lawsuits against Trump during a forum with Bennet, who has downplayed many of the legal actions as simply Weiser joining other states’ lawsuits.
“As your attorney general, I have sued this administration again and again and again,” Weiser said. “And we’re winning again and again and again. And if some people said lawsuits don’t matter — hypothetically, maybe even in the last couple hours — I gotta tell you, for transgender Coloradans, they matter,” he added, referring to a recent freeze on gender-affirming care for young people by the Trump administration.
Staff writer Seth Klamann contributed to this story.
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