TMJ Interview Special!
Teller Head Law Enforcement Leader: “I Want My Colorado Back”
Trevor Phipps
Last month, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell surprised many political insiders when he threw his name in the hat to become the next governor of Colorado.
In fact, he emerged as the first head lawman from Teller County in recent history to take such an ambitious step.
On March 13, Mikesell held a press conference in downtown Colorado Springs and announced that he will be running as a Republican in the wide-open 2026 Governor race. The current incumbent, Jared Polis, is term-limited and can’t seek the seat again, a situation that has created a slew of candidates on both the Republican and Democratic side.
At press time, Mikesell was one candidate out of a total of 20 contenders, including nine people seeking the Republican ticket. After Mikesell officially entered the race, he became the second candidate with Teller County roots, as state Senator Mark Baisley, who is from Woodland Park, has also joined the gubernatorial fray.
As for his pursuit of the governor position, Mikesell cites his 28 years of law enforcement experience, and strong, commanding role as sheriff of Teller County since 2016. Moreover, he has a wide diversity of experience in handling different issues that have plagued the county. The sheriff even touts his experience in dealing with national incidents, such as the Texas Seven fugitive capture, Hurricane Katrina, the Molly Kathleen Mine tragedy and major forest fires, along with handling local business issues. Plus, Mikesell is certainly no stranger to media interviews, aired on national news stations and many local outlets on a regular basis.
Mikesell said that he doesn’t like the way the state has progressed the last eight years and he wants to use his experience in serving as a leader and managing crises to change the state for the better. In his speech announcing his candidacy, Mikesell mentioned a wide variety of issues, such as the state budget deficit, immigration, water limitations, mental health woes, forest mitigation and crime. The sheriff wholeheartedly believes he has the exact experience and skill sets needed to fix the problems.
The following are a few highlights of Sheriff Mikesell’s stand on key issues, in response to questions by TMJ News.
TMJ News: How would you work with both sides of the political aisle and help decrease political division within the state?
Sheriff Jason Mikesell: Well, I think it starts with having stakeholder meetings, true stakeholder meetings. I deal with it right now where they’ll talk about how they’ve had stakeholder meetings. Well, they have not. Maybe they’ll ask one sheriff to be involved in it. The sheriff that they feel is going to give them the best answer for what they want, but they don’t want to have these other answers. They don’t want to have these other questions about different legislations. That’s a problem because you create stakeholder meetings to get both sides and all the issues, right? I don’t want somebody that’s going to give me a one answer, a yes. You can’t start a conversation without that. Now, here’s the other side of it, too, is being a sheriff and being a business person, I also understand that I have to work with everyone. I need all those different aspects and answers because once you start governing, governance is for all.
TMJ News: What do you think can be done at the state (governor) level to help the mental health crisis?
Sheriff Jason Mikesell: I think we need to stop standing up committees and putting money into committees. I think you can committee things to death
I think you stakeholder with the hospitals that are having to deal with a series of mental health concerns. You start ‘stakeholder-ing ‘with the first responders who are having to deal with it. And then we actually start funding things. One of the other bigger issues too, is we don’t have enough beds at the state hospital. We have to increase the beds in the state hospital. We have to maybe have more than just one state hospital.
TMJ News: If elected what steps would you take to eliminate the state’s budget crisis?
Sheriff Jason Mikesell: Well, first of all, I’d run an audit. What are we running with this money? How is it being spent? Because quite honestly, there’s no reason we should have got to $1.3 billion in debt in the first place. Look, eight years ago, we started with a Colorado that had very little debt. I think the true leadership we’re missing is somebody saying, ‘wait a second, you can’t spend more than your checkbook has in it.’ This is the Colorado people’s money.
So, I think you need a governor that can sit on both sides of the aisle, work with people and then really, if there’s a fiscal note on something, kill it. And I think you’ve got to bring in brilliant minds and that’s the thing about being a sheriff and a business leader that I’ve done in the past is you always, when you come in, you start looking at what really is there and how do we need to fix it.
TMJ News: What do you think can be done to decrease gun violence and mass shooting incidents in Colorado?
Sheriff Jason Mikesell: Here’s the thing: You’re never going to reduce gun violence by taking guns from lawful citizens. Criminals don’t care to go get this license anyways. A lot of the guns that are used in gun violence are either stolen guns or they’re guns that are appropriated through other means other than a normal lawful means. You want to decrease gun violence? You increase the penalties for somebody that does a violent act towards somebody else. You start keeping people in jail when they need to be in jail for the acts that they’ve committed. You don’t go soft on crime.
You go hard on crime. And that’s how you reduce gun violence. You fund programs throughout the state for sheriff’s departments and police departments to put together task forces locally and throughout Colorado to deal with gun violence.
