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Our verdict

LiberalMind endorses Kevin Grantham

Election Day is November 3. This office — the state's chief financial officer, managing its investments, sitting on the PERA board and overseeing unclaimed property — is on the ballot with an open seat: incumbent Dave Young (D) is term-limited. (Our research settles a housekeeping point in the open: this race did not appear in our coverage inventory at all. It exists, it is statewide, and it is covered here.) The nominees are State Sen. Jeff Bridges (D), who chairs the Joint Budget Committee, and Kevin Grantham (R), a former state Senate president and Joint Budget Committee member who now appraises commercial real estate for a living — plus two minor-party candidates with no campaign record located. A partisan analysis site's estimate, labeled as such and not polling, puts Bridges at 80%. LiberalMind endorses Kevin Grantham. Read the records, and see why.

The race and the money

Bridges was the sole candidate to clear 30% at the Democratic State Assembly — no candidate petitioned on — and is the Democratic nominee. Grantham is the Republican nominee. Also on the ballot: Jodie Barr (Libertarian) and Marilee Langner Sturgis (Approval Voting). The money, printed as a named compilation with its date (Pagosa Daily Post, Oct. 8, 2026, reporting TRACER filings): Bridges held $234,257 cash on hand as of October 1; Grantham held $75,981. Raised and spent totals were not in the reporting pulled, and we print none. Colorado Public Radio's context: it is "an uphill battle for Grantham, as no Republican has been elected to statewide office since 2016."

Jeff Bridges (Democratic) — the budget chairman

Record in service: State senator (SD-26, south metro Denver) since 2019; chair of the Joint Budget Committee and of Senate Appropriations; he helped write the state's roughly $17 billion general-fund budget.

Program: Direct some state investment toward Colorado housing, infrastructure, clean energy and small business; and create a forensic-accounting unit inside the Treasury to audit other agencies' spending. He and Grantham disagree over raising the TABOR revenue limit for K-12 funding — Bridges's side of that disagreement is part of his fiscal program as reported.

No in-service break with his party on our values was located in this research. His investment program — directing the Treasury's portfolio toward his party's priority sectors — is activism conducted with the state's balance sheet, stated in his own platform, and his budget record was built inside that program.

Pros: Seven years in the Senate and the chairmanship of the committee that writes the budget: he knows where the state's money goes because he has been sending it. The forensic-accounting unit is a genuinely treasurer-shaped idea — audit capacity inside the fiscal office.

Cons: His signature proposal aims the investment portfolio at policy targets — housing, clean energy, small business — which prices return and safety second to program. That is a governing philosophy, offered openly; it is also the philosophy this publication exists to argue against, and his record contains no counterweight break to weigh.

The flaw, plainly: Program, not conduct. No personal-conduct flaw was sourced against him. The flaw for our purposes is directional and proven in his own platform: a Treasury run as an investment arm of the majority's program, from a party-standard record with no located break — the enabler classification, not extremism.

Kevin Grantham (Republican) — the former Senate president

Record in service: State senator (SD-2) from 2011 to 2018, Senate President in 2017–2018, and a Joint Budget Committee member; now a Fremont County commissioner and a certified general commercial real-estate appraiser; previously a Cañon City council member.

Program: Safety-first treasury management — protect the investments, earn returns, keep funds liquid; open to local projects only at no added risk. On the TABOR question, he disagrees with raising the revenue limit for K-12 funding.

Pros: The full fiduciary résumé for this specific office: Senate president, budget-committee service, county commissioner, and a professional appraiser's license — a career spent pricing assets and guarding other people's money. His program is the office's job description, stated without ornament: safety, returns, liquidity, local projects only when they add no risk.

Cons: He has been out of the legislature since 2018, he trails in cash on hand by roughly three to one in the compilation printed above, and the partisan estimate and the decade-long Republican statewide drought both say the hill is steep. None of those is a flaw in service — they are the race's weather, reported as such.

The flaw, plainly: None proven in service was sourced against him in this research.

The minor candidates, briefly

Jodie Barr (Libertarian) of Littleton and Marilee Langner Sturgis (Approval Voting) of Boulder, a photography business owner, are confirmed on the ballot via Colorado Public Radio's guides and the KSUT voter guide. CPR found "no additional campaign information or resources" for either candidate. We print their ballot presence and that finding, and nothing more — an insufficient-record state, stated rather than padded.

OUR CALL

LiberalMind endorses Kevin Grantham.

A treasurer's first duty is not to a program; it is to the money. Both men have written budgets — that part of the files is even. They divide on what the portfolio is for. Bridges would direct state investment toward housing, infrastructure, clean energy and small business: the Treasury as an instrument of the governing party's priorities, from a record with no located break from that party. Grantham's platform is the fiduciary standard itself — protect, earn, stay liquid, local projects only at no added risk — backed by the deepest relevant service file in the race: Senate president, Joint Budget Committee, county commissioner, certified appraiser. We endorse the proven fiduciary over the proven budget-writer who would aim the portfolio at a program — and we note, as context and not as a factor in the call, that this race was missing from our own inventory until this research found it. It is covered now.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 5, 2026

Winner: Jeff Bridges (Democratic) — called by the Associated Press. This result was appended on November 5, 2026 (results wave 3); the original article above is unchanged, exactly as published before Election Day.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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