Colorado's governor's race is already a money fight, and the Democrats are landing the early punches. Attorney General Phil Weiser and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet finished 2025 sitting on big piles of cash, while the top Republican fundraiser is still way behind. Year-end filings show that both campaigns and the outside committees backing them pulled in serious money ahead of the June primary.
Weiser’s haul and grassroots pitch
Phil Weiser's campaign reported raising about $4.63 million through Dec. 31, 2025, and starting 2026 with nearly $3.5 million in cash on hand, according to Phil Weiser for Colorado. The campaign logged roughly $827,500 in fourth-quarter receipts and stressed that a large share of the money came in as small-dollar donations from Colorado residents. "We are building a historic people-powered movement," Weiser said in a campaign statement, casting his fundraising as a grassroots show of force.
Bennet’s outside machine
Michael Bennet's campaign ended the year with roughly $3.5 million raised directly, while Rocky Mountain Way, the independent committee supporting his bid, reported bringing in about $3.6 million and finishing 2025 with roughly $3.3 million in the bank, according to The Denver Post. That combination of campaign money and outside spending gives Bennet a financial counterweight to Weiser's advantage in on-the-ground fundraising, setting up a classic inside-game-versus-field-operation contrast.
Bloomberg gives super PAC a jolt
A late-quarter $750,000 donation from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was the largest single check to Rocky Mountain Way and helped drive the committee's fourth-quarter total, according to Axios. The big out-of-state boost has sharpened the argument inside the Democratic primary over national money versus homegrown support, and it highlights how independent committees can reshape a race without any direct coordination with the campaigns they favor.
GOP still playing catch-up
On the Republican side, Victor Marx topped the field with roughly $620,000 raised in the reporting period and about $350,000 in cash on hand, but the GOP contenders as a group remain far behind the leading Democratic campaigns, according to The Colorado Sun. Unless one Republican manages to consolidate both donor support and ad spending, that early financial gap makes it unlikely the party will be able to match the Democrats dollar-for-dollar in a statewide ad blitz this spring.
What to watch
The finance reports cover campaign activity from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025, and they set the starting line for Colorado's primary, scheduled for June 30, 2026, according to Vote411. Independent-expenditure committees are barred from coordinating with campaigns, so their money goes into things like ad buys and research rather than direct transfers into a candidate's account, per guidance from the Federal Election Commission. Expect both campaigns and their allied committees to fine-tune their spending and messaging as the primary gets closer.
Taken together, the numbers make it clear that the Democratic primary is likely to be the main event in Colorado politics this year, with both outside cash and ground-game organizing in play. Over the next five months, the key question is how those dollars get deployed, whether into persuasion ads, tightly targeted voter outreach, or a late spending surge that could decide who emerges with the nomination.
