Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen will run for election as Colorado attorney general this year in hopes of broadening his judicial impact, he said last week.

“We’ve done some really great things over the last five years in the DA’s office and with 21 years in prosecution, I’ve got a lot to offer this state, and I think the state is in desperate need of some change,” Allen said.

Allen, a Republican, blames the lack of balance in Colorado’s state government, predominantly occupied by Democrats, on what he describes as inadequate public safety reform.

If elected, he plans to bring progress made as district attorney, focusing on decreasing motor vehicle theft cases, utilizing crime data to allocate resources and impacting fentanyl distribution, to the attorney general’s office.

“If we can start to stem that a little bit and get balance returned to the state, maybe we can start to turn some of those things around and have a big impact,” Allen said.

The 4th Judicial District Attorney is the only Republican so far to file for the office. Allen will run unopposed in the June 30 primary election unless another candidate declares before the March 18 deadline.

A Republican with no political experience had filed but informally withdrew from the race in late December, according to emails on Colorado’s campaign finance disclosure website.

Allen is a Colorado native and attended Arvada West High School before enlisting in the Navy, according to his biography on the 4th District’s website. He served as an aviation electronics technician and was honorably discharged in 1998.

After his service, Allen earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Northern Colorado and his law degree from the University of Kansas. Allen worked as a prosecutor for two counties and the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, his biography states.

He returned to Colorado in 2011 to manage the veterans trauma court docket for the 4th District Attorney’s Office. In 2015 and 2017, Allen was named the district’s homicide prosecutor of the year.

He was notably on the prosecution team for the murder trials of Leticia Stauch and Nicholas Jordan, according to previous reporting by The Gazette.

The two-term district attorney was most recently elected in 2024 and his term expires in January 2029.

Allen’s possible opponent in a general election remains unclear as five Democrats have filed their candidacy for attorney general, including Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and 20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty.

The office was left without an incumbent in the upcoming election after Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is term-limited, declared his candidacy for governor.