Phil Weiser is poised to be Colorado's accidental governor
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Attorney General Phil Weiser gives a speech during an election watch party June 30 in Denver. Photo: Timothy Hurst/Denver Post via Getty Images
Back in 2016, when Democrats expected Hillary Clinton to win the White House, Phil Weiser planned to join her administration.
Yes, but: President Trump won.
After some soul searching, Weiser ran for Colorado attorney general.
- The former University of Colorado Law School dean and political unknown won the Democratic nomination by a mere fraction before easily defeating his Republican opponent in the 2018 election.
Why it matters: If Clinton had won, Weiser wouldn't have become attorney general. And it's safe to say, he would not be positioned to become Colorado's next governor.
What he's saying: "The fluke of [the 2016] election is what propelled my first campaign," he told us in a recent interview.
- Weiser calls it a "twist of fate that was a gift for me personally."
State of play: The term-limited 58-year-old attorney general defeated U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the June 30 Democratic primary election by a resounding 14 percentage points, riding an anti-Washington sentiment to victory.
- Next, he faces Republican nominee Victor Marx, a controversial religious nonprofit leader who won by 2,500 votes, in an election Democrats are heavily favored to win.
The intrigue: Now, Weiser says he's locked in at the state level, calling it his most meaningful work. "It's totally changed my focus," he said.
- He revealed publicly for the first time that he rebuffed inquiries to work for the Biden administration, and told Axios that he's not interested in running for a higher position.
- "This is it for me in terms of what my ambition is," Weiser said about the governor's office.
The big picture: In his Democratic primary victory speech, Weiser aligned himself with three legends: Govs. Roy Romer, Ralph Carr and Billy Adams.
- Each battled to preserve civil rights, respectively, protecting LGBTQ individuals, resisting the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and fighting the Ku Klux Klan.
The defining challenge for his generation, Weiser told us, is protecting the Constitution in the Trump era.
- He's made that clear by filing or joining more than 65 lawsuits targeting the Trump administration.
- "We are at a time when the rule of law … our basic freedoms, and our basic credo are very much hanging in the balance," he said. "The lawlessness and the corruption of the Trump administration is staggering."
The bottom line: Weiser may seem like an accidental governor, but he's intentionally embracing the role.