Character Over Revenge: Why I'm Supporting Victor Marx for Governor

Our family has watched Victor Marx up close for nearly twenty years — not at rallies or on a debate stage, but in church pews, at men's retreats my husband and son attended, and in the unscripted moments no campaign can manufacture. What we've have seen, over and over, is character. And character, more than any policy paper, is what Colorado needs in its next governor.

Let me tell you when we first understood what kind of effect this man has on people.

When our son Adam was eight, Victor spoke at our church and invited everyone back that evening. He walked to the pulpit with his dog, Scout and spoke of the Lion and the Lamb plush toys (https://atpministries.org/lion-and-lamb-comfort-toys/) which are programmed with songs and verses in the rescued boys' and girls' language. Whatever he said that night landed so deeply that Adam came home and told the friends he'd invited to his birthday party not to bring presents. He had more toys than he needed, he explained. Instead, he asked them to put money in a basket so he could donate it to Victor's ministry. He wouldn't let us tell the church what he'd done — he wanted the money to go quietly into an offering basket with no one knowing. He was nine. To this day, whenever Adam tithes from a paycheck, that ten percent goes to Victor's work.

A man who inspires a nine-year-old toward quiet generosity, without ever knowing he did it, is not performing. That is who he is when no one is watching.

And what is that work? For decades, Victor has gone where almost no one else will go — rescuing trafficked women and children; sitting with kids and giving them plush toys with songs in their language who survived the kinds of abuse most of us can't bear to hear about; and standing face to face with ISIS. I am not guessing about any of this. Our family has known Victor and Eileen and several of their five children through two church communities. I have friends who hold doctorates in psychology and have spent careers counseling survivors of childhood abuse, and they will tell you how rare it is to find someone with his combination of hard experience and genuine compassion.

So when I hear the accusations now circulating — that the rescuer is somehow the trafficker, that donated funds went to parties, that a rising home value in El Paso County (something most every homeowner in Colorado the past twenty-five years has experienced) is evidence of cheating — I won't dignify each one with a point-by-point rebuttal. I will simply say this: nearly twenty years of firsthand observation contradicts what strangers claim. When everyone piles on one candidate at once, it's worth asking who is threatened by him.

One story tells you everything about his temperament. Last summer, Victor and Eileen's youngest daughter was sexually assaulted in broad daylight by a man with a record of prior assaults — a man the system had released again and again. Here is a father who is a Marine, a man with more weapons training than probably anyone in this race. No one would have been surprised if he had taken matters into his own hands. He didn't. He pressed the sheriff and the police to do their jobs — to deliver justice for the past and protection for the women of this community going forward. Then, with his daughter's permission, on the evening he announced his candidacy in October, he stood beside her publicly while she thanked him. Restraint under the worst provocation a father can face: that is the temperament I want in the governor's office.

There is one more reason Victor has my vote. A few decades ago, a relative in southeastern Colorado opened my eyes to how much of this state feels forgotten — taxed year after year for the comforts of Denver and Boulder while being looked down on for their accents and their courteousness. Victor has held meet-and-greets in county after county, not just where the cameras are. The people Colorado's politics have overlooked are exactly the people he has spent his life showing up for.

I understand the skepticism voters bring to any candidate's supporters. All I can offer is what nearly twenty years of watching have taught me: this is a man who has faced traffickers, terrorists, a man threatening murder and his own family's worst nightmare — and never once lost his character in the process.

Colorado needs a governor with more character than appetite for revenge. I know where to find one.

Loni Moore (Written July 9, 2026)