Amanda Gonzalez, Jefferson County’s clerk and recorder, is taking her pitch statewide, asking voters to make her Colorado’s next secretary of state and casting herself as “a firewall, not a figurehead.” A Latina and openly queer attorney, Gonzalez argues that running elections in one of Colorado’s biggest counties gives her an edge in a race shaped by fights over mail voting and the influence of election deniers. The Democratic primary will decide who oversees Colorado’s election system as the state marches toward the 2028 presidential cycle.
Gonzalez has spent years in the weeds of voting access and government transparency, including a stint as executive director of Colorado Common Cause, and she leans heavily on that resume. According to Colorado Public Radio, she currently runs elections for roughly 600,000 Jefferson County residents and wants to make the state’s campaign-finance portal, TRACER, far easier for regular people to navigate. Her campaign materials also spotlight training volunteer election attorneys and expanding language access at polling places, as detailed on the Amanda for Colorado site.
The primary matchup
On the June ballot, Gonzalez is up against state Sen. Jessie Danielson, after both secured their spots at the Democratic Party assembly earlier this spring. Axios Denver reported that Gonzalez led delegates in an early preference poll, a sign that party insiders are at least listening closely to her pitch. Both Democrats are centering their campaigns on defending Colorado’s mail-ballot system and pushing back on federal moves that could restrict voting access. With Democrats currently holding all statewide offices, the primary winner is widely seen as the odds-on favorite in November.
Tina Peters' commutation and the stakes
Election security - and what happens when officials break the rules - hangs over the race. Colorado Public Radio reports that Gonzalez urged Gov. Jared Polis not to commute former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters’ sentence, warning that cutting her a break would weaken accountability for election crimes. Polis ultimately did commute Peters’ near-nine-year sentence in mid-May, a decision covered nationally by The Associated Press. The clash over Peters has turned into a proxy fight over trust, enforcement, and who should be trusted to run Colorado’s elections.
What to watch next
Heading into primary season, the big question is whether Gonzalez’s mix of legal credentials and nuts-and-bolts reforms - from a friendlier TRACER system to more voter education - can convert county-level chops into statewide momentum. The statewide primary is scheduled for Tuesday, June 30, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s election calendar. Whoever wins will be in the hot seat for steering Colorado’s election policy and campaign-finance enforcement heading into the 2028 presidential contest. If Gonzalez comes out on top, she would move from running one of the state’s largest county election operations to setting the rules for every county in Colorado.
