Cole Wist is an attorney and former state representative from Arapahoe County, Colorado. A Republican, Wist represented Colorado House of Representatives District 37 and served as Assistant Minority Leader in the House.

Early life and family

Wist was born in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

, but he was raised in

Paonia, Colorado Paonia is a statutory town in Delta County, Colorado, United States. The population was 1,451 at the 2010 census. History The area was first explored in 1853 by Captain John W. Gunnison of the United States Army. Gunnison was on an expeditio ...

. He and his wife Susan have three daughters.

Education

Wist earned his undergraduate degree from the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private university, private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Mountain States, Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is ...

in 1985. He also holds a J.D. Degree from Georgetown University Law Center. He works as an attorney at Ogletree, Deakins.

Political career

In 1996, Wist ran for the Colorado House of Representatives as a Democrat and lost to

Kay Alexander Kay Alexander (born 4 June 1950) is a retired British regional BBC television newsreader, best known for presenting ''Midlands Today''. Early life Alexander was born and brought up in Aldershot in Hampshire. Her mother was a doctor and her ...

. Wist was appointed as a Republican to the State House in January 2016 after his predecessor, Jack Tate, resigned to fill a vacant State Senate seat. Wist then ran for the office in the November 2016 general election and won, beating his Democratic challenger with 54.65% of the vote. With Democratic assistant majority leader Alec Garnett, Wist sponsored a red flag bill in 2018. This bill failed, but a similar bill was signed into law during the following session. Wist ran for reelection in 2018 but lost to Democrat Tom Sullivan. Since leaving the legislature, Wist has criticized

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

and the Republican Party for their handling of the Charlottesville car attack, voting rights, the

2021 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...

, and

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation Anti-vaccination activists and other people in many countries have spread a variety of unfounded conspiracy theories and other misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines based on misunderstood or misrepresented science, religion, exaggerated cl ...

. He opposed the efforts of the

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) is a 501(c)(4) non-profit gun rights advocacy group in Colorado, United States. The group has become known for aggressive lobbying activities that have made their issues prominent, particularly in primaries and ca ...

recall Recall may refer to: * Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop * Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure * ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted language learning * Recall (memory) * ''Recall'' (Overwatch ...

his former rival Tom Sullivan in 2019. During the

2020 presidential election This national electoral calendar for 2020 lists the national/federal elections held in 2020 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *5 January: **C ...

Wist was a steering committee member of The Lincoln Project's Republicans and Independents for Biden group. In January 2022 Wist announced that he was leaving the Republican Party to become unaffiliated.

References

External links

Campaign website

State House website
21st-century American politicians Living people Members of the Colorado House of Representatives University of Denver alumni Georgetown University Law Center alumni Colorado Republicans People from Paonia, Colorado 1962 births Politicians from Fort Worth, Texas Colorado Independents {{Colorado-politician-stub