Michael Allen, the district attorney for El Paso County, landed the Republican nomination for attorney general on Tuesday, winning by a wide margin over David Willson, an attorney who represented election denier Tina Peters in her failed 2022 recount lawsuit.
The Associated Press called the race for Allen at 7:56 p.m., when he lead by 21 percentage points.
It was a rematch of sorts for the two Republicans, who also ran against each other in the 2024 primary to lead the El Paso County district attorney’s office. That time, Allen won with 66% of the vote.
Allen campaigned on public safety, touting his career as a criminal prosecutor — most notably the hate crime case he brought in the wake of the Colorado Springs’ Club Q mass shooting in 2022.
Willson, a retired U.S. Army attorney and cybersecurity consultant, gathered a political following after the 2022 election, when he represented Peters in her attempts to challenge the results of her failed bid to become the Republican nominee for secretary of state. Peters, the former Mesa County Clerk, alleged without evidence that voter fraud was to blame for her defeat by 14 percentage points.
Willson’s campaign site touts a number of far-right causes, such as fighting vaccine mandates, opposing Sharia law and banning sexually explicit books from schools.
Allen advances to the November general election, where he will face Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who won the Democratic primary.