BY FREDA MIKLIN
GOVERNMENT REPORTER
On May 31, Douglas County State Senator Chris Holbert, who represented SD30 and was the Senate Minority Leader, resigned from the general assembly to move to Florida. He was term-limited and could not have run again in November.
On June 4, it was announced that the Douglas County Republican Party vacancy committee had selected incumbent State Rep. Kevin Priola to fill the remaining months of Holbert’s term in the state senate. In turn, the vacancy committee selected Kurt Huffman to fill Priola’s former seat, State Rep. for HD43. Priola is unopposed in the GOP primary for SD30.
Huffman, a legislative volunteer for four sessions, was the 2021 Douglas County GOP Volunteer of the Year award winner. Huffman holds three masters’ degrees, in mechanical engineering, engineering management, and business. He worked at Lockheed Martin and now owns his own business.
Huffman hopes to run for election to the position to which he has been appointed, HD43 state representative, in November. To do so, he must first win the GOP primary, where he is opposed by Robin Webb, an accounting manager and Highlands Ranch resident with an interest in nutrition and lifestyle. Webb won the top-line designation on the primary ballot over Huffman at the GOP County Assembly in March.
The winner of the GOP primary will face Democrat Robert “Bob” Marshall, a Marine Corps veteran who holds a degree from Georgetown University and a J.D. from Cornell Law School. He served as Station Judge Advocate for the Marine Corps in Japan and later clerked for a federal Appeals Court judge. In 2005, he returned to active service at the request of the Marine Corps and served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where his legal skills were needed. Marshall is a former Republican. His daughter is a nuclear submarine officer.
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