Ahead of Colorado’s primary elections, June 30, the IJN spoke with three Democratic candidates for Attorney General: Michael Dougherty, Jena Griswold and David Seligman. The IJN also spoke with two Republican candidates for Attorney General: Michael Allen and David Willson, and reached out to Democratic candidate Hetal Doshi.
Jena Griswold was elected Secretary of State for Colorado in 2018 and reelected in 2020. Much of her work has focused on elections and voter registration.
The current Attorney General has made suing the Trump administration a priority. Would you continue that?
Absolutely. As Secretary of State, I led many fights to defend democracy against Trump, and as attorney general I plan to continue to do the same, to stand up to Trump and MAGA extremists to protect our democracy and fundamental rights.
For example, when MAGA county clerk Tina Peters compromised her voting equipment to try to prove Trump’s conspiracies, I held her accountable.
I led the investigation. We removed her from direct election oversight. That was the nation’s first public election insider threat.
After January 6, I fought to remove Trump from the ballot despite receiving death threats. I’m currently being sued by Trump for refusing to hand over Coloradan sensitive voter data.
I’m going to continue to stand up to Trump to protect our rights and to stop his attack on Colorado.
Does suing the administration impact Coloradans’ daily life beyond elections?
He retaliates against the state, whether it’s moving the space command or trying to shut down NCAR climate research or retaliation to hold back funds for people who have experienced natural disasters, to holding back funds for our drought readiness or fire readiness, let alone fundamental freedoms. For example, abortion access.
We have a 22-month-old at home. Our baby is such a joy, the light of our life. But I’ll tell you, being pregnant in Trump’s America can be scary. If a woman is in the wrong state and something goes wrong with your pregnancy, it can mean your health, or unfortunately, it can mean your life. So I’m also going to hold the line to protect IVF, birth control, abortion access.
I’m going to fight to protect our freedoms in our state, just like I’ve done on democracy as Secretary of State.
What are your other priorities for Attorney General?
I was born in Toledo (Ohio), but then we moved to outside of Estes Park when I was 10. That’s where I largely grew up.
Estes Park was one of the many towns that had that historic 1,000-year historic flood back in 2013. It was one of the scariest times of my life because our mom was out of communication for multiple days.
There’s been many fires up there. I live in Louisville now. Half the town burnt down in 2021.
We are seeing the quick evolution of climate change turn into climate disaster. On top of that, you have the EPA largely being gutted. They no longer believe in climate change.
So one of my top priorities is enforcing our climate laws, air, land, water. For example, Suncor. It’s a huge corporate polluter. It gets a slap on the wrist for producing one of the worst air qualities in the United States.
Strong enforcement on that, I think, is crucial, both to maintain clean air, clean water, our open lands, but also for Coloradans’ health.
Justice means expediated justice, but we were seeing a two-year delay of testing rape kits. So that’s one of my top priorities, too. Standing by victims, making sure that the DNA is processed fast enough so people can get justice.
The office has never had a Democratic woman Attorney General. I was Colorado’s first female Democratic Secretary of State. I’m excited about all the ways that the Attorney General can help Coloradans, consumer protection and antitrust, for example.
In the case of Xcel Energy, where does the corporation end and the Public Utilities Commission begin? It is the only energy option for Coloradans. We are seeing fewer options and more monopolies.
My grandpa was born in Detroit and he was deaf. His dad was Polish. The rest of our family was in Toledo. My grandpa’s family was driving back to Detroit from Toledo when he was [around] two years old and they had a car crash. His parents rushed him to the closest hospital and they wouldn’t treat him [because he was] Jewish.
He ended up losing his hearing. He was deaf his whole life. This was before there were a lot of schools and institutions for people who couldn’t hear a hundred percent.
He was matched with my grandma who was also considered highly disabled because she had epilepsy.
My grandpa had a small business, a bar, and ended up just pulling himself up literally by the bootstraps. But we grew up pretty blue collar. When we moved to Estes, we were on and off of food stamps. We went to food banks.
So I think that at the end of the day, when Coloradans or candidates say the system is rigged, I’ve lived it. I actually still have over $200,000 in student debt.
What we see is big corporations, billionaires really trying to tilt the system against working people. The Attorney General has a high degree of oversight over whether it’s big mergers, price gouging, illegal junk fees.
When you’re talking about Xcel and the PUC, I’m a firm believer that if new infrastructure is going in the ground to benefit million, if not billion, dollar companies, it shouldn’t be on the backs of Coloradans.
I feel pursuing the Kroger Albertson merger is exactly where I would want to be.
I buy the groceries in my house. And we are very lucky. But to see the price of a pound of meat go up by two or three bucks in the last year, that means the difference between putting that meat on the table or not for many families. So really prioritizing the types of bad illegal business transactions that are affecting the vast majority of people is what I want to prioritize.
Phil [Weiser] was able to show in the King Soopers Albertson’s issue that in towns like Eagle, where you had one grocery store, their prices were more expensive than in towns that had two.
Where does free speech end and criminal threat begin?
Since 2021, I’ve received over 3,000 violent threats or death threats. Four men have been sentenced to prison time for threatening my life. It’s a really hard thing to grapple with.
One of the laws that I helped champion was making it illegal to threaten an election worker, because what we are seeing is the threats being weaponized, to push good people out of their jobs, or to make certain communities feel like they can’t be present.
My sister-in-law works in the Boulder Municipal Building, where the [June 1, 2025] attack happened. My mom works at Boulder Community Hospital. She’s Jewish, and we live about 12 to 15 minutes away. People need to feel safe without stifling the First Amendment. It’s something that society grapples with.
There’s two different questions: What is prosecutable and what is repugnant? Hate speech should have no place in society. People should be able to feel that they belong. That’s what the United States is supposed to be about, a place where very many people can coexist together as Americans.
I will say the Anti-Defamation League does a really good job. In the 2022 [election] cycle, Tina Peters and her friends pegged me as Gestapo Griswold.
But, the flip of it is we’re seeing massive First Amendment infringement on journalism and journalists. Coercion, I would say, near corrupt behavior from the federal administration. Basically, you pay me or we’re going to wrap you up in litigation and try to shut you down.
So we have to protect the First Amendment, which includes speech that we disagree with. At the same time, it shouldn’t incite violence against anybody. It’s a tough one.
It’s only one to two generations back where Jewish lawyers were not welcome into top law firms in this country, where people were not welcome in country clubs.
And that is not just the Jewish experience. If you’re black, if your skin’s brown, if you’re a woman, how can we exclude in a multicultural country? I believe you try to live peacefully with people.
You use the power of the pen more than the sword. And once the sword is brandished in an illegal way, there are consequences. It’s devastating what happened in Boulder.
Colorado has one of the steepest rises in anti-Semitism. It’s an absolute shame.
Leaders need to stand up and demand more from other leaders and community members. Violence absolutely has no place.
© IJN 2026
