In Tuesday’s Republican primary races for state Senate seats in Colorado Springs, early vote tallies showed an incumbent, and a current El Paso County commissioner, with sizable leads over their respective opponents in the hours after polls closed.

State Sen. Larry Liston had secured more than 62% of the vote in early returns in the three-candidate District 10 race. County Commissioner Stan VanderWerf had slightly more than 60% of the vote in the District 12 contest, vying against a former schoolteacher to replace outgoing state Sen. Bob Gardner.

The District 10 victor will run unopposed in the November election to represent an area that covers north-central Colorado Springs and a portion of El Paso County.

The winner in District 12, which encompasses a portion of western Colorado Springs, the mountain communities along U.S. 24, Fountain and Fort Carson, will face Democratic House Rep. Marc Snyder, the former mayor of Manitou Springs, on the November ballot.

VanderWerf, a former Air Force officer, is term-limited in his position on the El Paso County Board of Commissioners. He said that, if elected to the state Senate, his priorities would be public safety, infrastructure, economy and jobs. During his campaign, he also questioned Colorado’s law preventing law enforcement from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and said it should be repealed. A complaint accusing VanderWerf of violating campaign finance laws when he referenced his run for state Senate during an El Paso County commissioners meeting in May was dismissed by the Secretary of State’s Office. The group that filed the complaint, Integrity Matters, said it planned to appeal the decision.

VanderWerf’s opponent, Adriana Cuva, told The Gazette previously that her top priorities if elected would be property taxes, improving the quality of education, addressing Colorado’s rising cost of living, and public safety. She is a naturalized American citizen from Ecuador, an Army wife and has been serving as the secretary for the local Republican Party.

A longtime state lawmaker and retired investment executive and vice president for the Royal Bank of Canada, Liston was expected to have the advantage as the incumbent in the race for District 10. Before serving in the state Senate, he served in the state House during two non-consecutive terms.

If reelected, he said he would focus on reducing regulation and fostering nuclear energy in the state.

Liston took the stage Tuesday at a GOP watch party at Boot Barn Hall in Colorado Springs, to share his perspective on the types of candidates — and political party — he believes voters want.

Rational, “not some far-right wack-a-dos that don’t get anything done,” he said. “We need to get back to the Republican party of people like Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater.”

Liston faced longtime party activist David Stiver and Rex Tonkins, who is also active in the local GOP.

Stiver promised to work on addressing government overreach and reforming the judiciary. Tonkins, who is married to the El Paso County Chairwoman Vickie Tonkins, did not list any specific policy priorities in an open letter to voters, but promised to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

Tonkins and Liston have publicly tangled before.

Liston alleged Tonkins “chest-bumped” him after the two exchanged words near the end of a tense 2021 party meeting at a Colorado Springs church. Tonkins denied he acted aggressively in any way, and a jury acquitted him on misdemeanor harassment charges, according to reporting by Colorado Politics.

Republicans currently hold 12 of the 35 seats in the state Senate. If Snyder flips District 12, it could widen the Democrats’ majority.