This year’s primary elections saw voters deciding on several statewide and congressional races. Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Managing Editor Maeve Conran spoke with reporter Caroline Llanes about what role climate change played on the campaign trail.
Editor’s note: the following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Maeve Conran: Well, the elections just wrapped up, and they took place against this backdrop of multiple wildfires burning across the state. In addition, we've had a record-breaking dry winter, and of course, the ongoing crisis on the Colorado River. So of course, climate change is looming very large here in Colorado. But how were those issues actually being discussed on the campaign trail? So I know there were a couple of races that you covered. Let's have a look at them. First of all, the governor's race.
Caroline Llanes: Yes. So let's start with the Democrats. Both Attorney General Phil Weiser, who ended up winning, and Senator Michael Bennet, actually had pretty robust platforms when it came to climate, energy, water, public lands, things like that. You might have to go to their website to see those full platforms, and in a lot of ways, (they’re) very similar candidates. They had little differences on certain issues.
I will say there was one thing that really did set Phil Weiser apart from Michael Bennet, and that was how hard he was hammering the role of corporate money in politics. I'm going to read you a Facebook post from his campaign Facebook account.
He says, "Out-of-state billionaires and corporations are spending big money backing Michael Bennet, and their agenda is not what's best for Colorado. I'm not backed by and don't answer to corporate PACs, out-of-state billionaires, or special interests. I answer to you."
And I think that that was such an interesting thing to bring up in the context of climate. So I talked to Phaedra Pezzullo at CU Boulder. She studies environmental and climate communications, especially as it relates to politics, and she summed it up really well.
Phaedra Pezzullo: So the same elite companies that are denying, delaying, and distracting us from climate are the ones who are pouring money into elections to sway politicians to ignore their voters. I think that addressing the climate crisis requires more than talking about climate as climate, as the C word. It also requires addressing the influence of economics on our democracy and the ways everyday people care about equity.
Llanes: So yeah, the issues of campaign finance reform and the role of big money in politics are absolutely linked to the climate crisis. You know, when you're thinking about corporate polluters, the oil and gas industry spends big in elections. So I think that even if candidates weren't explicitly saying the words climate change, I think there's sort of an undercurrent of noticing how climate plays a role in our politics.
I think we should just touch on the Republicans really quick. Top line, we didn't hear a whole ton about climate and the environment from Republicans. Victor Marx, he sort of sucked up all of the oxygen in the room when it came to the Republican primary. He has a very unusual backstory and made some pretty shocking claims about his past. So that race was really more candidate-focused, at least in what I was seeing in terms of messaging. Kirkmeyer spent a lot of time and energy discussing her conservative bona fides and really decrying Marx as bad for Colorado and dishonest. So there wasn't a whole lot of concrete policy discussion about climate or the environment.
Climate as an issue in Colorado’s Third Congressional district
Conran: Well, the largest congressional district in the state is CD3, and that covers huge swaths of Western and Southern Colorado and a lot of public lands in that district, also a lot of energy development. So in that race, was climate a talking point amongst the Democratic or the Republican candidates?
Llanes: Yeah, that's a great question, and it's kind of hard to say. Like you said, CD3 is the largest district in the state, one of the largest in the country, I believe, and that makes it a hard district both to represent and to campaign in because geographically it's so big, which makes it hard for candidates to be everywhere they need to be, and it also makes it harder to coordinate things like debates, candidate forums, things like that where you get a side-by-side look at the candidates. So we didn't really get a whole ton of side-by-side comparisons.
For Democrats, the big message was fighting for Colorado and standing up to Trump, along with the cost of living. So I would say that climate was not a huge topic of conversation in the race, but like you said, public lands are a big issue, energy development a big issue, and I would say that both Dwayne Romero, who ended up winning, and Alex Kelloff both made it a point to touch on energy development as well as public lands as part of their campaigns. But I would say that affordability was really the big focus for them.
And then for incumbent Jeff Hurd, again, the message was affordability and also, too, touting tax cuts from the Trump administration. Hurd does have a record in Congress on public lands and a background in energy, but those were not really things he was talking about, at least in his TV ads. He did have a primary challenger, Ron Hanks, but Hanks jumped in pretty late, and I don't think I saw any of his campaign messaging outside of a couple yard signs here and there and his Facebook page, which I sought out as a journalist.
But it's fair to say that both Hanks and Hurd are pro-energy development. Hurd characterizes himself as a best-of-the-above approach to energy, which means that he thinks that America should pursue energy development that is the most reliable and affordable, and he is a supporter of the oil and gas industry in Western Colorado. He says he's open to exploring other forms of energy as well.
And I would say that Hanks was probably even further on the “drill, baby, drill” scale when it comes to Republicans. He characterizes it as an issue of national security, and in the past has made claims about China trying to undermine the American energy industry. So I would say that energy is probably the biggest focus point for Republicans in CD3 when it comes to climate topics.
Conran: Well, earlier you mentioned that you spoke with Phaedra Pezzullo, who's in the Department of Communications at CU Boulder. What else did she have to say about this?
Llanes: Yeah, so she made some really interesting points. I mean, I think the first and obvious one is that climate change can be a polarizing term across America. You know, you do have people who deny the realities of climate change, who don't agree with settled science, so people don't want to mention climate change for fear of polarizing potential voters. However, it is also important to note that Colorado is a little different from other states in the US in terms of how the public views climate change.
Pezzullo: I would say we're talking about more nuanced approaches that maybe you wouldn't have if you were in Texas right now or Florida or Tennessee. That in the state of Colorado, we're like, “Sure, climate's a problem. What's your solution?” And then the debate is, “Well, does my solution include just transition? Do I care about workers? Does my solution include affordability and access to renewable energy, or is it just gonna be, you know, rich people in Boulder who can buy EVs and have solar panels?”
Llanes: Well, of course, there's also the point that I mentioned earlier, which was the idea of the climate crisis and corporate money in politics being linked. You see that a lot in the conversation around AI and data centers, so she thought that that was also contributing to climate discourse in Colorado.
Also, too, because as we've pointed out, candidates weren't really talking about climate change in those words a whole ton in this cycle, well, they haven't been doing that for quite some time. When you look at an analysis of global newspaper and media coverage of climate change, 2021 was sort of the peak of when people were talking about climate change using those words. So Colorado isn't alone. Everywhere people have sort of slowed down on explicitly discussing climate change as part of the broader discourse.
Lack of media coverage on climate change during elections
Llanes: But I think also, too, an interesting point that she made was it's not just candidates who aren't saying the words climate change anymore. We're not seeing as many journalists asking these candidates about climate change. So, you know, when we have the media asking questions of politicians, that also, too, shapes what we hear from them about climate change on the campaign trail.
Pezzullo: If our media is owned by people that have financial interest in us not talking about climate, then even if the politicians do have it on their websites or do talk about a just transition in climate and disasters and water shortages and batteries and AI data centers, if the journalists aren't connecting the dots for the public to help us have a conversation about thinking about how a data center has something to do with climate change, it'll be harder for us to have that conversation.
Llanes: So there's a few different factors that you can see playing into the discourse or lack thereof around climate change in Colorado's elections.
How will climate factor as an issue in the general election?
Conran: Well, how does all of this bode then for the upcoming general election in November with the candidates who have now advanced from the primaries to the general election? Do you think that climate will actually be a significant issue that's going to be discussed or a significant factor in those races?
Llanes: Yeah, that is a really interesting question because like we've touched on earlier, we are living the impacts of climate change right now. We have some huge fires burning around the state, we have the Colorado River crisis, we are in a state of drought, in the highest level of drought in some parts of Colorado. So climate change is very much a reality, and I think that candidates are going to have to answer to that, whether or not they use the words climate change.
You know, last summer we saw the Lee Fire here on the Western Slope that burned, I think, over 130,000 acres. It was one of the largest wildfires in the state's history, I think it was in the top ten. And we still have gotten no disaster relief funding from FEMA and the federal government, even though we applied for that funding. Usually it's just a check in a box, getting that money out to the states who need it. Colorado has not gotten that money yet.
So I think that the candidates up and down the ballot are going to have to answer questions about fire recovery. They're going to have to answer questions about how they're going to push their policies, energy or otherwise, in the face of an administration that has been very openly hostile to Colorado and its goals. So I don't know whether we're going to see more candidates talking about climate change in such explicit terms, but I do think that they are going to have to answer questions about its impacts.
And also too, returning to earlier points, you know, we talked about corporate money in Colorado politics, I think that folks are going to have to answer questions about the kind of money and power that influences politics here in Colorado, and some of that money and power is going to be from corporate polluters. It's going to be from the oil and gas industry, the fossil fuels industry. So all of these things are going to play a role in the elections. What remains to be seen is whether we will actually hear the words climate change being used.
Conran: Well, Caroline Llanes is our rural climate reporter. Thank you so much for taking time to talk to me about all of this.
Llanes: Yeah, thank you so much, Maeve.
Copyright 2026 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
