Victor Marx wins Republican primary for Colorado governor
The Associated Press reports that Victor Marx, a marines veteran and self-described “high-risk missionary”, whose extraordinary claims about his past have been disputed and mocked, has won the Republican primary for Colorado governor.
Marx narrowly defeated state senator Barbara Kirkmeyer by just fewer than 2,500 votes and will face the Democratic nominee, state attorney general Phil Weiser, who is sure to focus on the unsubstantiated claims made by the Republican.
Marx, a pastor who runs a non-profit that focused on “hunting predators as well as rescuing, restoring and empowering women and children who have been held captive by traffickers and other abusers”, refused to provide evidence during the campaign for his boasts about the group’s work overseas, or for his claim that, when he was seven years old, his abusive stepfather forced him to kill a man.
Marx refused to say during the campaign how many people he has killed and pledged to continue performing exorcisms, in person and by phone, if elected governor. He also has a sideline in viral videos of himself rapidly disarming people with guns pointed at his head.
“From the little we know about Victor Marx, his views and style are far out of step with Coloradans, and his nomination for governor is a threat to our state’s values and our future,” Weiser said in a statement on Marx winning the Republican nomination. “Governing is serious business, and Coloradans have a clear choice in this race: a politics of showing up, listening, and fighting for the rights and freedoms of all – or a politics of deception, demonization, and distraction.”
Kirkmeyer declined to endorse Marx in a statement accepting her loss.
“While we came up short in what appears to be the closest Republican gubernatorial primary in Colorado history, I’m grateful for every voter who placed their trust in us,” she said. “Now the voters will make the final decision in November, and I hope they choose the path that is best for Colorado.”
“I’m still proud of the campaign we ran … and, for the record, I still haven’t killed anyone,” she added.
During a televised Republican primary debate last month, Marx was confronted by one of the moderators, Kyle Clark, about a series of his wildest claims.
“Mr Marx, you make claims that are unlike any ever made by somebody running for Colorado governor in recent history,” Clark said. “You claim that you’ve been all around the world, armed to the teeth, rescuing women and children from captivity; that you stopped human smugglers at the Mexico border and made them pay a price; that you, as a civilian, called in a US military airstrike that killed 70 Isis fighters; that you were the first American into Gaza during the war with Israel; that you’ve done 150 high-risk missions and every one has been a success.
“You told me last week that it’s all true and that you don’t need to prove it to anyone,” Clark continued. “But you’re talking to voters now. How should voters decide whether you’ve lived one of the most extraordinary lives in human history, or whether you’re a liar and a fraud?”
“I can’t help it if I’ve had an extraordinary life,” Marx replied.
He then pointed to his dog, standing beside him on stage, and added: “This little dog … she was in Syria and Iraq. So is she lying, too?”
“Well,” Clark replied, “the dog’s not running for governor.”
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Victor Marx, a marines veteran, pastor and self-described “high-risk missionary”, whose extraordinary claims about his past have been disputed and mocked, won the Republican primary for Colorado governor. State senator Barbara Kirkmeyer conceded the race, despite losing by just fewer than 2,500 votes.
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Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said her government will ask state and federal prosecutors in the United States to file criminal charges against the people responsible for the deaths of 17 Mexican citizens targeted during anti-immigration operations or while in immigration detention centers.
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A Mexican immigrant who was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday was not the man federal officers were searching for, the Department of Homeland Security said.
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Morris Katz, Zohran Mamdani’s 27-year-old media strategist, who has been blamed by many Democrats for helping to recruit Graham Platner to run for the US Senate in Maine and made ads for the campaign, distanced himself from the candidate.
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Troy Jackson, a former president of the Maine state senate who hopes to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for US Senate, if Platner makes good on his promise to formally withdraw by the Monday deadline, said in an interview with MS Now that Platner had lied to him.
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Dan Kleban, a co-founder of the Maine Beer Company, wrote on Substack on Thursday that he would not vote for Chuck Schumer as the party’s Senate leader next year should he win the nomination and be elected.
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A Mexican immigrant who was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday was not the man federal officers were searching for, the Department of Homeland Security told the Guardian.
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The enforcement operation targeted a Guatemalan immigrant the agents believed was in a white van being driven by the Mexican man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed officials familiar with the investigation.
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The Guatemalan immigrant was not in the van, but an officer shot Salgado when they tried to stop the van, and he died later in a hospital.
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Salgado’s family, including his wife and three sons, found out about his death from news reports. Neither ICE nor local officials informed the family, they said.
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“He did not deserve to die,” his son Ronaldo Salgado said at a news conference in Houston on Wednesday. “He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline”.
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The Associated Press reports that Victor Marx, a marines veteran and self-described “high-risk missionary”, whose extraordinary claims about his past have been disputed and mocked, has won the Republican primary for Colorado governor.
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Marx narrowly defeated state senator Barbara Kirkmeyer by just fewer than 2,500 votes and will face the Democratic nominee, state attorney general Phil Weiser, who is sure to focus on the unsubstantiated claims made by the Republican.
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Marx, a pastor who runs a non-profit that focused on “hunting predators as well as rescuing, restoring and empowering women and children who have been held captive by traffickers and other abusers”, refused to provide evidence during the campaign for his boasts about the group’s work overseas, or for his claim that, when he was seven years old, his abusive stepfather forced him to kill a man.
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Marx refused to say during the campaign how many people he has killed and pledged to continue performing exorcisms, in person and by phone, if elected governor. He also has a sideline in viral videos of himself rapidly disarming people with guns pointed at his head.
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“From the little we know about Victor Marx, his views and style are far out of step with Coloradans, and his nomination for governor is a threat to our state’s values and our future,” Weiser said in a statement on Marx winning the Republican nomination. “Governing is serious business, and Coloradans have a clear choice in this race: a politics of showing up, listening, and fighting for the rights and freedoms of all – or a politics of deception, demonization, and distraction.”
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Kirkmeyer declined to endorse Marx in a statement accepting her loss.
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“While we came up short in what appears to be the closest Republican gubernatorial primary in Colorado history, I’m grateful for every voter who placed their trust in us,” she said. “Now the voters will make the final decision in November, and I hope they choose the path that is best for Colorado.”
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“I’m still proud of the campaign we ran … and, for the record, I still haven’t killed anyone,” she added.
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During a televised Republican primary debate last month, Marx was confronted by one of the moderators, Kyle Clark, about a series of his wildest claims.
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“Mr Marx, you make claims that are unlike any ever made by somebody running for Colorado governor in recent history,” Clark said. “You claim that you’ve been all around the world, armed to the teeth, rescuing women and children from captivity; that you stopped human smugglers at the Mexico border and made them pay a price; that you, as a civilian, called in a US military airstrike that killed 70 Isis fighters; that you were the first American into Gaza during the war with Israel; that you’ve done 150 high-risk missions and every one has been a success.
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“You told me last week that it’s all true and that you don’t need to prove it to anyone,” Clark continued. “But you’re talking to voters now. How should voters decide whether you’ve lived one of the most extraordinary lives in human history, or whether you’re a liar and a fraud?”
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“I can’t help it if I’ve had an extraordinary life,” Marx replied.
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He then pointed to his dog, standing beside him on stage, and added: “This little dog … she was in Syria and Iraq. So is she lying, too?”
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“Well,” Clark replied, “the dog’s not running for governor.”
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Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Thursday that her government will “move beyond diplomatic channels” and ask state and federal prosecutors in the United States to file criminal charges against the people responsible for the deaths of 17 Mexican citizens targeted during anti-immigration operations or while in immigration detention centers.
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At a news conference, Sheinbaum said the killing this week of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent while on his way to work at a construction site, “is not only sad and regrettable, but also appears to have been targeted”.
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Salgado’s family said he was a “hardworking family man”, had lived in the US for more than 30 years and was in the process of obtaining his work permit.
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“We are going to do everything in our power, because we cannot stand silent” in the face of the deaths of Mexicans “whose only crime is working honestly in the United States”, Sheinbaum told reporters.
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According to the Mexican government, 14 Mexican citizens have died while in ICE custody and three during ICE operations.
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Mexico would ask prosecutors to charge “whoever is found responsible for what we consider to be homicides – or, in other cases, human rights violations”, the president said.
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Sheinbaum added that her government will be “submitting a request to the private companies that manage these detention centers, asking them to respect the human rights of Mexicans”.
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Morris Katz, Zohran Mamdani’s 27-year-old media strategist, who has been blamed by many Democrats for helping to recruit Graham Platner to run for the US Senate in Maine and made ads for the campaign, distanced himself from the candidate on Thursday.
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“As soon as the team became aware of the rape allegations against Graham Platner we advised he suspend his candidacy, and in the following days worked to wind down the campaign,” Katz wrote. “Like so many of his supporters, I’m deeply disappointed.”
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Katz made his statement hours after the New York Times reported that, before Platner’s campaign was derailed by his past comments, Nazi-inspired tattoo and sexual assault allegations, the young campaign strategist “was privately promoting him as a future presidential candidate for as soon as 2028, if he won his Senate bid”.
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The statement also came amid speculation that Platner might try to fight on, by failing to file his paperwork in time to formally take his name off the ballot, after the candidate bitterly denounced the Democratic party establishment for supposedly forcing him out of the race in a lengthy video statement on Wednesday.
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Dan Kleban, a co-founder of the Maine Beer Company who hopes to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for US Senate, wrote on Substack on Thursday that he would not vote for Chuck Schumer as the party’s Senate leader next year should he be elected.
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In a post with the unsubtle headline “I Won’t Vote for Chuck Schumer for Senate Leader”, Kleban drew attention to a CNN interview the night before in which he said that he would not support Schumer’s continued leadership.
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“I’m running to be a new voice in the Senate, a new generation of leadership. I think it’s time for some turnover,” Kleban said. “If we want to change how Washington works, we have to change who is running the show. That’s why I wouldn’t vote for Chuck Schumer as leader.”
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Kleban entered the Democratic primary last year, but later dropped out and endorsed Janet Mills, the state’s governor, after the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, controlled by Schumer, had recruited Mills and discouraged Kleban’s run.
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Troy Jackson, a former president of the Maine state senate who hopes to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for US Senate, if Platner makes good on his promise to formally withdraw by the Monday deadline, said in an interview with MS Now on Thursday that Platner had lied to him.
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Pressed by the host Katy Tur to explain why he had continued to support Platner even after it was revealed that he had had a tattoo used by the Nazi SS and made racist and sexist Reddit posts in the past, Jackson said he had accepted Platner’s explanations for the tattoo and the posts, “but when it came to a credible sexual assault, it became clear that was, that was it. It was a red line that I wasn’t going to cross.
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“And the other thing about it was, was Graham told me point-blank that there was nothing in his past that I had to worry about. And he lied to me. And he lied to a lot of us.”
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Jackson, a self-described “pickup-truck progressive” whose failed bid for governor this year was backed by Bernie Sanders, also told Tur that he has long supported the issues that Platner made the focus of his campaign.
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“I think the biggest thing about this was the issues that Graham was talking about and bringing people out on, things like Medicare for all, and health insurance, prescription drugs, workers’ rights, these are the things that we have all believed in and wanted huge change in,” he said. “And, certainly, the people here in Maine do.”
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Jackson also acknowledged that some voters might be put off by his past votes against gay marriage and abortion access, but argued that his more recent record reflects that he changed his position on those issues.
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“I voted against those things over 15 years ago. Since then, I have found out. I have understood. I mean, I have always been someone that believed that healthcare is a human right. And it became clear to me after some time that abortion, reproductive rights access, is a h