• Original Reporting
  • Subject Specialist

The Trust Project

Original Reporting This article contains firsthand information gathered by reporters. This includes directly interviewing sources and analyzing primary source documents.
Subject Specialist The journalist and/or newsroom have/has a deep knowledge of the topic, location or community group covered in this article.
Crisanta Duran, then Colorado's speaker of the House, makes her way to the podium to convene the new session in the House chamber in the State Capitol Friday, Jan. 4, 2019, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
The Unaffiliated — All politics, no agenda.

Democrat Crisanta Duran, a former speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, announced Thursday morning that she will run next year to be Colorado’s attorney general. 

“I’m running for attorney general because I am committed to ensuring that every Coloradan is safe, healthy and economically secure,” Duran said in a written statement. “Like many Coloradans, I’m deeply concerned about the future of our country and know that a new path forward is required in times like these when it can seem as though nothing is sacred.”

If elected, Duran said she would “work to protect consumers, increase affordability, combat corruption and stand up to greed.”

Duran is the second Democrat to announce this week that they are running to be Colorado’s attorney general. Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty launched his campaign on Tuesday.

Colorado’s current attorney general, Democrat Phil Weiser, is term-limited and can’t run for reelection in 2026. Instead, Weiser is running to be Colorado’s next governor.

Other Democrats rumored to be interested in running for attorney general in 2026 include Adams County District Attorney Brian Mason and Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. 

Griswold is also weighing whether to run for governor or attorney general in 2026. 

Duran hasn’t been in the political spotlight in Colorado for several years. She served as speaker from 2017 to early 2019 and then ran in 2020 to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in Denver. Duran ended her insurgent, albeit lackluster, campaign long before the primary. 

After dropping her congressional bid, Duran worked in a national capacity on former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s unsuccessful 2020 presidential bid.

As for her legal experience, Duran is a 2005 graduate of the University of Colorado Law School. She worked as a lawyer for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union, where her father was the longtime president. 

Then-Colorado state Rep. Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, listens to a briefing from economists, during a meeting of the Colorado Legislative Council on the state’s budget and economic outlook on March 18, 2013. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

Duran announced around the new year that she had started working at the Harris Family Law Firm, which handles legal matters like divorce and estate planning.

Her statehouse tenure lasted from 2011 to 2019. She also served as House majority leader and as chair of the Joint Budget Committee. 

The Democratic primary for attorney general will be held in June 2026.

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

Jesse Paul is a Denver-based political reporter and editor at The Colorado Sun, covering the state legislature, Congress and local politics. He is the author of The Unaffiliated newsletter and also occasionally fills in on breaking news coverage. A...