Voodoo, exorcism and a killer at age 7. Meet Colorado’s Republican nominee for governor
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- Victor Marx barely won, but his victory delivers a strong statement about the nature of today’s politics.
- It shows what happens when a party stops seriously competing and instead indulges its fever dreams.
When Victor Marx was 3 years old, he was forced into a voodoo ritual involving a beheaded cat. At age 7, he killed a man.
Or so Marx says.
But he was not just a precocious child.
As an adult running a “high-risk” Christian ministry, Marx says he rescued 45,000 women and children from captivity and abuse. As a civilian, he supposedly called in a U.S. military airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters. He’s exorcised demons — and can do so over the telephone, he says, if need be.
True or, most likely, false, those woolly claims and epic tales of derring-do aren’t the weirdest thing about Marx.
The weirdest thing is that Marx is the Republican nominee for governor of Colorado, an actual part of these United States.
A political newcomer, Marx eked out his victory in a three-way race by less than 2,500 votes out of more than 520,000 cast. (It took almost nine days to declare a winner, but surely you knew that already, given the national outcry over how long it took Colorado to count its ballots. Oh, wait. Never mind.)
Although slender, Marx’s victory delivered a strong statement: about the grave condition of mainstream Republicanism; about the increasing embrace of oddity and extremism by a deeply disaffected slice of the American electorate; about the unsettled and unsettling nature of today’s politics.
“It’s almost cult-like,” Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado GOP chairman, said of Marx’s support. “You talk to some of these people, and there is no doubt in their mind he will be governor, because God has decided that he’s going to be governor.”
The House Problem Solvers Caucus is pushing for national redistricting standards that could end the worst abuses. Odds are long, but the coast-to-coast gerrymander fight could boost the push for reform.
There’s fat chance of that. (Please don’t smite me.)
Colorado has elected only one Republican governor in the last 55 years, and that was back in 2002. It’s been 10 years since a Republican won any statewide office. The Democratic nominee, Atty. Gen. Phil Weiser, is as close to a November shoo-in — after stomping U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the primary — as it gets.
But Marx, 61, a former Marine and expert in martial arts, is nothing if not swaggering. His role model is, of course, the political disrupter and fabulist-in-chief currently occupying the White House.
Like President Trump, Marx relies heavily on personal charisma, a strong social media presence and the purposeful shunning of campaign norms which, to the politically alienated, speaks to his independence from the establishment and offers a welcome break from the same old, same old.
He casts himself as a problem-solver and negotiator par excellence. He skimps on policy and skipped most of the preprimary debates; at the one he did attend, Marx brought his dog, a Dutch shepherd, onstage. In lieu of a closing statement, Marx prayed.
When asked, he hasn’t backed off his fantastical claims. But Marx hasn’t done a very good job substantiating them.
As a young boy growing up in Louisiana, he says, his abusive stepfather — the one who supposedly involved him in a satanic feline decapitation — drove him to rural Mississippi, where Marx shot and killed a man. Police told Colorado Public Radio they had no record of any unsolved homicides from that time.
“How many people have you killed?” Kyle Clark, an anchorman on Denver’s 9News, asked the candidate in a persistent and revealing sit-down interview.
“I don’t think that’s important,” Marx replied. “It’s actually kind of — it’s an odd question to me.”
Actually, it’s not.
(Conceding the Republican race, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer — the runner-up — conspicuously declined to endorse Marx, urging voters to “choose the path that is best for Colorado” in November. “For the record,” she added. “I still haven’t killed anyone.”)
In many ways, Marx is a mainstream conservative Republican. He founded All Things Possible Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that tends to refugees and other victims of trauma. His focus on law and order, tax relief, small government and deregulation are all standard GOP fare.
But his florid tales of youthful homicide, telephonic exorcisms, personally intercepting human smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border — well, not so much.
Most voters will probably have a hard time getting past those autobiographical extravagances, which could spell trouble — depressed GOP turnout, guilt by association — for other Colorado Republicans, including freshman Rep. Gabe Evans, who’s fighting to hang onto a closely fought congressional seat in the north-central part of the state.
It’s a loss Republicans can ill afford as they desperately seek to preserve their bare House majority.
Despite its preference for Democratic governors, Colorado was, until not that long ago, a competitive two-party state. It was a presidential battleground as recently as 2012. Republicans held a majority in the state Senate as recently as 2018.
But the MAGA-fication of the state GOP has hastened Colorado’s evolution from political battleground to a solidly blue bastion.
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Once solidly Republican, the West has become political bedrock for Democrats. No state has changed as emphatically in the last two decades as Colorado.
“The Colorado Republican Party right now is impotent and irrelevant,” said Wadhams, who fought unsuccessfully against its takeover by Trump-worshiping zealots. “The ironic twist to this story is that polling has shown over the past several months that voters are getting restless about what they see as the decline of Colorado in terms of education, energy, roads and transportation.”
Just last week, the annual Colorado Health Foundation issued its annual Pulse Poll, a dour report card on the state of the state that found three-quarters of respondents were concerned they may not be able to live there in the future.
But don’t expect Democrats to lose their sovereignty anytime soon.
That’s what happens when a party and its voters stop seriously competing and instead indulge their passions and fever dreams. You get candidates, and political caricatures, like Victor Marx.
God help us.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The article portrays Victor Marx as an extraordinarily unconventional candidate, emphasizing his own accounts of a childhood steeped in abuse, voodoo rituals and killing a man at age 7, then as an adult who claims to have exorcised demons by phone, called in a U.S. airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters and personally rescued tens of thousands of women and children.
It argues that these spectacular and largely unsubstantiated stories are less alarming than the political reality that such a figure is now the Republican nominee for governor of Colorado, suggesting this reflects the grave condition of mainstream Republicanism and the party’s growing embrace of extremism and fantasy.
The piece stresses that Marx is a political newcomer who won a three-way primary by a razor-thin margin, yet treats his victory as a “strong statement” about a deeply disaffected slice of the electorate that is drawn to charismatic outsiders who flout norms and present themselves as divinely chosen.
It links Marx stylistically and politically to Donald Trump, describing Marx as a swaggering disrupter and “fabulist” who relies heavily on personal charisma, social media and performative gestures — such as bringing his dog onstage at a debate and ending with a prayer instead of a policy-based closing statement — rather than concrete plans.
The article underscores that Marx has repeatedly failed to verify his most dramatic claims, noting that law enforcement in Mississippi reported no record of an unsolved homicide matching his childhood murder story and highlighting his evasive response when pressed on how many people he has killed.
It contends that although Marx holds standard conservative positions on taxes, regulation, and “law and order,” his lurid autobiographical tales and talk of telephonic exorcisms place him far outside the mainstream, and that many voters are unlikely to see him as a plausible governor.
The piece highlights visible discomfort within his own party, citing primary rival Barbara Kirkmeyer’s refusal to endorse Marx and her pointed remark that she “still hasn’t killed anyone,” using this to illustrate internal GOP unease and the difficulty Marx may face uniting Republicans.
It frames Colorado as a state that has effectively moved out of reach for Republicans at the statewide level, arguing that Democrats — particularly Attorney General Phil Weiser — are overwhelming favorites and that Marx’s nomination will likely depress GOP turnout and damage down-ballot candidates.
Finally, the article suggests that Marx’s rise is symptomatic of a state party hollowed out by “MAGA-fication” and more interested in indulging “passions and fever dreams” than seriously competing for power, concluding that candidates like Marx represent political caricature rather than credible leadership.
Different views on the topic
By contrast, news coverage emphasizing Marx’s biography and policy platform presents a more conventional portrait: a Marine Corps veteran, ministry founder and “high-risk humanitarian” who won a hard-fought but legitimate primary and now heads the GOP ticket, without framing his victory as an existential crisis for the party.[1][2][7]
Some reporting foregrounds his stated priorities on affordability, public safety and tax relief, noting that Marx talks about auditing state agencies, cutting 10% from every department’s budget and using tax credits and streamlined permitting to boost sectors like advanced manufacturing, clean-tech and outdoor recreation, suggesting a more detailed issue agenda than the article acknowledges.[3]
Coverage in conservative-leaning outlets describes Marx as a ministry leader and humanitarian who works with refugees and victims of trauma, highlighting efforts to “set captives free” and combat human trafficking in the U.S. and abroad; this framing portrays his dramatic personal narrative as part of a faith-driven mission rather than as disqualifying eccentricity.[5][6][9]
Other profiles refer to Marx as a “high-risk humanitarian” and emphasize his martial arts background and work in conflict zones, indicating that, among supporters and some journalists, his reputation is rooted in courage and service as much as in controversial claims about his past.[7]
Rather than depicting his backers as “cult-like,” reporting on the primary stresses that Marx narrowly defeated an establishment-backed state senator in a crowded field, interpreting his win as a sign of grassroots appetite for an outsider and frustration with traditional politicians more than as a wholesale break from reality.[2][4][10]
At the same time, some coverage notes that Marx disputes specific sensational claims circulating about his work — for instance, in a television interview he rejects the figure that he personally “rescued 45,000 women and children” and says his organization has not publicly released such a number — which pushes back on portrayals of him as deliberately inflating his achievements.[8]
Analyses of the race also point out that Colorado Republicans chose Marx despite the risks because many voters are deeply concerned about rising costs and public safety and want a candidate who promises aggressive change on those fronts, an emphasis that contrasts with commentary that focuses primarily on his personality and anecdotes.[1][3][4]
Some political reporting argues that, even in a Democratic-leaning state, persistent voter unease about the direction of Colorado — on issues like affordability, energy policy and infrastructure — means Republicans still see a potential opening if Marx can consolidate support and broaden his appeal, countering the view that the general election is effectively predetermined.[3][4]
Finally, while acknowledging intra-party skepticism, outlets such as the Denver Post and Colorado Sun suggest the central strategic question for Republicans is whether Marx and party leaders can “unite” after a divisive primary to mount a credible challenge, framing the contest as a test of coalition-building rather than as a simple morality tale about extremism.[1][4]