Marine Corps veteran Chaz Evanson, an unaffiliated candidate for Colorado governor, held a Q&A session with several dozen attendees at the Cortez Livestock Auction on Aug. 24, sharing a vision shaped by rural voters’ discontent with urban-centered decision-making.
Evanson stood before the U.S. flag behind a livestock pen, engaging with the crowd for about two hours and regularly citing from a pocket Constitution that he said he has carried since enlisting in the military two decades ago.
He passionately advocated for bringing Judeo-Christian virtues behind the Constitution back into Colorado politics, reforming the state’s General Assembly and curtailing government overreach and touched on immigration and transgender issues.
Evanson is one of 33 candidates running for governor ahead of the Nov. 3, 2026 election, according to Ballotpedia. Since 2007, the previous three governors have all been Democrats.
Although Evanson is openly conservative, he stands solely unaffiliated, saying that he serves not a party, but instead “the Constitution, the people of Colorado, and the Almighty God.”
“As I travel across Colorado, I meet people disillusioned by the false choice between two broken parties,” he said.
Running unaffiliated has its hurdles. The first question Evanson received was how he would overcome the challenges of fundraising and name recognition.
Evanson said he won’t be taking big donations from special-interest groups, instead embarking on a grassroots campaign. He is gathering the minimum 1,000 signatures from all eight of the state’s congressional districts in order to be placed on the ballot of the 2026 Colorado gubernatorial election, he said. He welcomes donations.
Evanson, who was born in Durango and grew up in Cortez, now lives in Mesa County with his wife and children. For the next six months, he plans to travel statewide.
“I'm going to be everywhere I can,” he said. “I'm going to meet as many people as I can.” The campaign ahead will be bolstered by a growing online presence too.
“Currently, both chambers of Colorado's General Assembly are based solely on population,” Evanson said. “This gives urban centers near-total control over the legislative process and silences the unique concerns of rural and less populated counties.”
His message appeared to resonate with the crowd.
“Being Western Slope counties, we often don’t have a lot of voice on the Eastern Slope,” said Lenetta Shull, chairwoman of the Montezuma County Republican Party.
“We really don’t get heard here in Southwest Colorado,” said Tim Passell, co-owner of the Cortez Livestock Auction.
Evanson said that as governor, he’d create a system of 64 Senate seats in the General Assembly, one for each Colorado county.
“Today, the state government in Denver can impose sweeping laws affecting your county’s economy, schools, land use and values without ever asking you, the people, for your consent,” Evanson said.
Enacted into Colorado law in May, the Kelly Loving Act was intended to protect the rights of transgender people. The act, for instance, outlines how schools must follow a student’s chosen gender identity, style of dress and name.
For Evanson, the act helped catalyze him into a gubernatorial run, he said. Behind that bill and others like it, he said, were blatant violations of constitutional rights, like free speech, that force parents into state obedience.
Similarly, he said he opposes any state law that seeks to strip citizens of their right to bear arms and practice religion.
Many of these issues would have to be addressed through state executive orders that cite constitutional violations, Evanson said.
He also opposes undocumented immigration.
“You want to come to the United States because it's awesome, go to the front door,” he said. “Otherwise, see yourself to the door or be collected up and moved out of the out of the nation.”
At times, Evanson chose evocative words to express his vision. He said he opposes “every policy that threatens to make us more like Venezuela or California,” and he described abortion as “the largest holocaust in the world,” saying he would stop Colorado from funding Planned Parenthood.
However, conveying values from his Christian faith, he said families who’ve chosen abortions in the past should be treated compassionately.
He is an underdog, compared with Democratic candidates, but he believes in civilized dialogue.
“We need a governor and a we need a legislator and just in our communities, we need to get back to saying, ‘You know what? I still love you, but I just disagree with you on that point.’”
