{"id":28641,"date":"2024-03-19T01:11:53","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T01:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jason-eley-withdraws-from-6th-judicial-district-attorneys-race\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:36:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:36:01","slug":"jason-eley-withdraws-from-6th-judicial-district-attorneys-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jason-eley-withdraws-from-6th-judicial-district-attorneys-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Eley withdraws from 6th Judicial District attorney\u2019s race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jason
Jason Eley, assistant district attorney in Montezuma County, is running to become the next district attorney in the 6th Judicial District. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Jason Eley, a candidate for 6th Judicial District attorney, has withdrawn from the Democratic primary to serve as top prosecutor for a three-county region in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

His decision to withdraw came one day after his opposing candidate, Sean Murray, was named by Gov. Jared Polis to become district attorney for the 6th Judicial District. Murray, who was sworn in last week, will serve out the remainder of Christian Champagne\u2019s term, which was set to expire in January 2025.<\/p>\n

Champagne, who was term-limited, took a senior counsel position<\/a> with the Colorado Attorney General\u2019s Office to advise and support rural district attorneys statewide.<\/p>\n

Eley sent an email last week to La Plata County Democratic Party Chairwoman Anne Markward announcing his decision to withdraw from the primary election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you so much for the opportunity to be involved in the race to be a candidate for the Democrat party in the district attorney race for the 6th judicial district,\u201d Eley wrote. \u201cI wish you all the best of luck in your choices moving forward. I am no longer a candidate for this election cycle and withdraw my name from consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eley also sent a statement to The Durango Herald<\/em> on Friday showing gratitude toward Gov. Jared Polis for being considered as interim DA.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heartiest congratulations go out to Sean Murray and every good wish for a successful administration. I appreciate the Governor\u2019s Office selecting three qualified applicants capable of replacing the outgoing District Attorney, Christian Champagne,\u201d Eley said in the statement \u201cI am disappointed at not being selected as the finalist to be appointed as the District Attorney to serve the 6th Judicial District. Fortunately, the selected candidate will benefit the community by sharing his vision to promote community safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also thanked supporters, the governor\u2019s office and those involved with his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am confident all of Southwest Colorado will continue to contribute to Colorado being one of the safest states in the nation,\u201d he said. \u201cI have great faith the community, Republicans and Democrats alike, will unite behind our next District Attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eley declined further comment when reached Monday about his decision to drop out.<\/p>\n

Eley serves as assistant district attorney for the 22nd Judicial District overseeing Montezuma and Dolores counties. He was seeking the top position in the 6th Judicial District, which covers Archuleta, San Juan and La Plata counties. Eley was running on a \u201csmart on crime\u201d platform that sought to reduce recidivism through diversionary programs.<\/p>\n

During a candidates\u2019 forum<\/a>, <\/em>Eley said he would rather release 10 guilty people than convict or hold in jail one innocent person. He also championed alternatives to incarceration.<\/p>\n

With Eley out, Murray appears to be the only remaining candidate for district attorney.<\/p>\n

Murray said he plans to wind down fundraising efforts and focus solely on his job as interim district attorney.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless somebody else enters the race, I\u2019m just going to kind of focus on our day-to-day operations and making sure that we\u2019re pursuing excellence,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n

Murray wished Eley the best of luck with his work in the 22nd Judicial District.<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

now the lone candidate in primary election<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1078,950,28,475,1025],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-28641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6th-judicial-district","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-law-and-justice"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80483,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28641\/revisions\/80483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28641"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=28641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}