Mark Baisley

Mark Baisley was born in Hastings, Minnesota, and says in a Colorado Politics questionnaire that he lived outside the United States in his teens and early twenties.[2][3] He earned a bachelor's degree in computer information systems and business administration from Columbia College, where he served on the Board of Trustees (his campaign says for 12 years) and received its Professional Achievement Award.[2][6] He worked as a senior systems engineer at Martin Marietta and a senior engineer at Raytheon, and as president of Slipglass, Inc. and Enspherics. He describes himself as an aerospace engineer who worked for NASA and several defense contractors, and his campaign website lists Hughes and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory among his employers and says he now leads a Colorado software company.[2][3][6] His campaign website says he chaired the Colorado Space Business Roundtable, and Ballotpedia lists him as vice chair and finance chairman of the Republican Party of Colorado.[2][6]

Baisley served in the Colorado House of Representatives for District 39 from 2019 to 2023, succeeding Polly Lawrence.[2] He won the 2022 general election for Colorado Senate District 4 over Jeff Ravage and took office on January 9, 2023, succeeding Jim Smallwood. His 2025-2026 committees include Business, Labor, and Technology and Local Government and Housing, and he says he co-chairs the legislature's Aerospace and Defense Caucus.[2][3] He says he introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 24B-002 in 2024 on property tax reform, and Colorado Politics, in his questionnaire answers, quotes a report that he passed 14 of 18 prime-sponsored bills in a session in which Republicans were a minority.[3]

Baisley withdrew from the Republican primary for governor and announced his U.S. Senate candidacy on January 5, 2026, saying that state Sen. Julie Gonzales's challenge to Sen. Hickenlooper suggested the incumbent might be vulnerable. He advanced from the June 30, 2026 Republican primary for U.S. Senate and was not seeking re-election to his state Senate seat.[2][4] During the campaign, he emphasized fiscal restraint, government accountability and affordability.[2][3][4] He received 35.0% of the vote to John Hickenlooper's 60.4%, according to unofficial results reported by NBC News.[1]