by Kieren Heinle, staff writer
In a recent virtual forum on Oct. 21 with student journalists from across the state, gubernatorial candidate Victor Marx made claims regarding criminal sentencing, public safety, education spending, and the state’s motto.
Some of his statements are easily tested against government records and academic research, while others rely on statistics that require additional context. But a closer look at the available evidence raises questions about several of Marx’s assertions.*
This article uses reliable sources to examine the evidence behind some selected statements from the interview to explain what’s true, what’s missing, and what’s a matter of opinion.
The purpose of this fact-checking is not to determine which candidate readers should support, but to give readers the information needed to evaluate political claims independently and to understand what the evidence is showing them.
Claim 1: 70% of child rapists receive probation in Colorado
The FoxTalk forum moderator asked, “Mr. Marx, in October 2024, a Colorado State University student reported being sexually assaulted at a fraternity house. This July, CSU found the accused student responsible for violating its sexual assault policy and suspended him for a year. Fort Collins police closed their investigation without asking prosecutors to file charges, and on Oct. 1 the woman sued him and the fraternity.
If elected governor, would you order an independent state review of the police investigation and whether criminal charges are warranted?”
Marx did offer sympathy and an interest in the case but also made the following claim in his response: “Right now, under my opponent’s so-called leadership, 70% of child rapists actually get probation.”
Findings: The data does not support this claim as framed by Marx
The 70% figure cannot be verified. It appears to have originated in a Colorado Legislative summary that was then misleadingly paraphrased by CBS News in 2021.
According to the legislative summary, “70% [of] people charged with an indeterminate sentence received no prison time.” There are a few important distinctions to note here: first, the statistic describes a group of people charged with indeterminate offenses. There are 13 offenses in Colorado that require mandatory indeterminate sentencing and 8 of them do not involve children, so this figure does not measure “child rapists.” Second, the statistic also only cites people who have been charged, not people who have been convicted. A charge is an accusation, and a conviction refers to a guilty judgement. And finally, it only measures the absence of a prison sentence, not specifically the receipt of probation. All this tells us is that 70% of people accused of a crime that involves an indeterminate sentence don’t receive a prison sentence.
The Colorado Department of Corrections Lifetime Supervision of Sex Offenders: Annual Report (2025) also does not establish any specific figures regarding probation for offenses involving a child.
Claim: Harsher criminal penalties deter violent crime
The Criterion from Colorado Mesa University asked, “Pew Research Center released a report in 2018 indicating that steeper penalties for crimes do not deter deviant behavior and tend to only burden taxpayers by increasing prison populations. Additionally, mandatory sentencing essentially eliminates the need for the judicial process. How can one create meaningful change in the penal system without increasing penalties and taxpayer burden?”
In response, Marx said, “first, I would say I do believe that penalties against violent crime actually work.”
Findings: Research shows that increasing penalties is not a deterrent
The available research does not support the claim that harsher penalties successfully deter criminal behavior. Research in this area is significant, and the Pew Research Center’s report provides a place to delve deeper. The National Institute of Justice (the research division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs) has also researched deterrence and summarized their findings in the article “Five Things About Deterrence,” which concludes the certainty of being caught has a stronger deterrent effect than increasing the severity or length of punishment.
Claim: Education administration and bureaucracy absorb too much state funding
The Echo at Pikes Peak State College asked, “What are your plans to address Colorado education statistics, such as beginning educator pay and student spending, both of which trail the national average?”
Marx responded by saying Colorado’s education system is “heavily funded.”
“My first priority will be to examine how education dollars are being spent, how much is actually reaching the classroom. And as I travel the state, that seems to be one of the biggest problems,” he said.
“There are some positions that can’t even be filled, but yet the bureaucracy of education, it’s well funded, and they’re wanting more. So, we just got to look at how much our teachers make and how much is being absorbed by the administration and bureaucracies,” he said.
Findings: Salaries and benefits make up 63% of K-12 educational spending
The Colorado Department of Education maintains a K-12 Financial Transparency Database that separates expenditures into categories like operations, salaries, services, etc. According to this report, 63% of the $2,137,653 spent on K-12 education in the 2024-2025 fiscal year was spent on salaries and benefits. And of this $1,413,568 budget for salaries and benefits, 9% went to administrators and another 8% to office/administrative support. Colorado still ranks 35th in the nation for starting teacher salaries. Colorado also spends less money on higher education than other states, shifting the burden of cost onto students.
Claim: Colorado students are falling behind the national averages
Marx also said, “If the children aren’t learning to read, if we’re below the national averages in math, like you said, if they’re not improving in math, if we’re not preparing for college or technical careers or the workforce, then what are we doing?”
Findings: Colorado Students are not falling behind in national averages
The Colorado Sun’s January 2025 article on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress results reported Colorado students performing at or above national levels in reading and math. Colorado students are outperforming their national peers in reading and math; 42% of Colorado fourth-graders met or exceeded proficiency in math, compared with 40% nationally. And 33% of eighth-graders met or exceeded math proficiency, compared with 27% nationally.
Let it also be noted here that Johnson’s full question is included above and makes no mention of students falling below national averages in math, despite Marx’s assertion otherwise.
Claim: Colorado’s motto proves the state should be consecrated to god The moderator also asked Marx, “You said your first act as governor would be to consecrate the state back to God. Would a Colorado public university risk losing state funding because its policies conflict with your Christian beliefs?”
In part of his response, Marx said, “And more than my personal Christian beliefs, me consecrating the state back to God is actually based on our state and the founding fathers.
That is actually the motto, and it’s in our state seal. Our motto for our state is Nil sine numine, which is Latin for “nothing apart from the providence of God.” So, actually all I’m doing is returning back to what our founders had said. This is how we should run our state. And it’s so important. Let’s put it in our seal.”
Findings: The history is interesting and fairly open to interpretation
Colorado’s state motto, Nil sine numine, most commonly translates to “Nothing without providence”; other translations include “Nothing Without the Diety” and “Nothing Without Divine Will.” It’s possible that Marx was conflating and combining the different translations in this statement. However, the motto comes from an interpretation of a line in Virgil’s Aeneid, an ancient Roman epic written before the manifestation of Christianity. This origin is discussed in the Colorado General Assembly House resolution 16-1005. And, while the motto has evolved since its initial evocation and has recognized religious interpretations, it also has a history of being deemed a pagan phrase by initial critics.
Claim: Marx has rescued girls from ISIS
At one point in the interview, Marx said, “Trust me, I’ve developed teams overseas. We’ve rescued women and children, girls your age, from ISIS”.
Findings: It’s complicated
Marx makes these types of claims fairly regularly, while refusing to elaborate or answer any questions about them. When researching these claims, most of the information about them appears to be originating from Marx himself, and other journalists who have done more digging seem to yield mixed results. In this interview with journalist Kyle Clark, Clark referenced Marx’s February 2026 statement of “just last month, our team rescued 43 children from the grips of predators,” and asked Marx if that statement was in reference to Operation Northern Lights in Florida. Marx agreed. But it turns out, according to the U.S. Marshals Service’s list of agencies running the operation, Marx’s organization All Things Possible (ATP) Ministries was not directly involved.
The document lists the rescue organizations that participated and ATP Ministries is not included. It turns out his organization provides grants that fund rescues like Operation Northern Lights, but his team was in no way directly involved with that rescue. It’s even harder to find evidence of rescues and incidents farther from home, like his claims to student journalists in this interview about rescuing girls from ISIS.
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The claims examined here illustrate why political statements involving hot-button issues require more than just a quick glance at a statistic. The evidence suggests that several of Marx’s more controversial claims omit important distinctions that affect their meaning.
*Disclaimer: The Echo has only evaluated Marx due to its participation in this student-moderated forum. Journalism students are learning how to research information, and this forum provided an opportunity. We would have done the same to any gubernatorial candidate we were invited to hear speak.
For more student journalism on candidates Phil Weiser and George Lopez, visit FoxTalk.
