Weiser Challenges Bennet at Durango Town Hall on Water, Democracy

Phil Weiser turned a Friday night forum in Durango into a preview of the governor’s race, using questions on water, small business and the opioid crisis to argue that rural southwest Colorado needs a stronger state advocate on the issues that shape daily life.

At the Durango Public Library, Weiser spoke for about an hour and a half before a crowd organized by Indivisible Durango, which had recently endorsed him. He criticized U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet for declining to attend after being invited to the event billed as a town hall, saying Bennet should have shown up and that a refusal to share a stage was not healthy for democracy.

That dispute matters well beyond party politics in Dolores County, where a 2020 Census count of 2,326 people and an estimated July 1, 2025 population of 2,466 underscore how dependent a small rural county is on state decisions about water, public lands, energy costs and access to services. Weiser is signaling that, if he becomes governor, he would put the state squarely on the side of water users and rural communities rather than leave those fights to Washington or the Front Range.

His campaign has framed that approach around a five-point water agenda: defending Colorado water rights, opposing buy-and-dry schemes, funding water infrastructure, expanding conservation and reuse, and protecting water quality. In practical terms, that is the kind of agenda that could affect irrigators, small towns and county governments in the Dolores River basin, where every new transfer, storage project or federal rule can ripple through ranch operations and municipal supplies.

Bennet’s campaign dismissed Weiser’s criticism as "cheap attacks" and said Bennet has appeared with Weiser at many forums. It also pointed to Bennet’s work on public lands, rural health care and water policy, areas that remain central in western Colorado. Bennet is set to return to La Plata County on Monday for Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s memorial, another reminder that the region’s political world is still shaped by figures who built their reputations in the West.

The broader race is already taking shape. Gov. Jared Polis is term-limited and cannot run again. Weiser won 90% of the delegate vote at the Colorado Democratic state assembly in Pueblo on March 28, and Bennet qualified for the June 30 primary by petition. Weiser says he launched his campaign on Jan. 2, 2025 and had raised more than $1.5 million by March 10, evidence that the contest for the Democratic nomination is moving quickly from symbolism to a fight over who would wield state power most forcefully for rural Colorado.