The Democrats running in next year’s election to succeed term-limited Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser agree that the state’s next top lawyer needs to be a fighter. Still, beyond that, the four announced candidates in the growing primary field bring different backgrounds and approaches to the table.

For Michael Dougherty, the Boulder County district attorney and a former head of the criminal division at the Attorney General’s Office, that includes his 27 years as a courtroom attorney and prosecutor, along with experience overseeing hundreds of lawyers in the offices he’s managed — a key distinction, he noted this week in an online discussion, since Colorado’s Department of Law’s more than 500 employees make it the equivalent of one of the largest law firms in the state.

Dougherty’s Democratic primary rivals are Secretary of State Jena Griswold, former state House Speaker Crisanta Duran and David Seligman, a nationally prominent public interest attorney who runs a Denver-based nonprofit firm. Political newcomer Connor Pennington is so far the only Republican in the race, though both primary line-ups are expected to grow in the coming months.

Another Democrat, former Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Hetal J. Doshi, appears to be nearing an announcement, while Republicans who have expressed interest in the race include Assistant House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, R-Colorado Springs, and El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen.

Dougherty was joined on May 29 by three of his fellow elected prosecutors — two Democrats and one Republican — on a 45-minute teleconference with reporters set up by his campaign, with the district attorneys all stressing that Dougherty “gets it,” when it comes to what it takes to be an effective attorney general.

Without mentioning any of his primary rivals by name, Dougherty and his backers drew obvious contrasts with the rest of the field.

All four acknowledged that responding to the Trump administration in court will almost certainly be a big part of the next attorney general’s job, if a Democrat wins the position — Weiser has led or joined more than a dozen lawsuits this year challenging the administration — but also insisted that bringing a overly partisan agenda to the office threatens faith in the rule of law.

“We have some real challenges here in Colorado coming at us from the Trump administration, and I can promise you that as the next attorney general, I’m always going to make decisions about what’s right based on the rule of law and principle, never political agendas and never a political ambition,” Dougherty said. “And I think where we lose the trust of the people we serve, where we undermine the confidence and integrity that people place in our justice system, is when they sense that the leader of an office — whether it be a district attorney’s office or the Attorney General’s Office — is hyper-partisan and being guided by something other than the rule of law and principle.”

Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubenstein, a Republican, drew national attention last year when he led the successful prosecution—with an assist from Weiser—of former county clerk Tina Peters for the Republican’s role in a scheme to breach the county’s secure election equipment. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump called Peters a “political prisoner” and demanded that state officials release her from prison, where she’s serving a nine-year sentence.

Endorsing Dougherty, Rubenstein said “the party line” shouldn’t be an issue in the attorney general’s race.

“We should be focusing on what is the right thing for Colorado, who has the experience in litigation, who has the experience in running a large law office that can make good decisions, and that the decisions are not going to be made because you’re trying to score political points,” Rubenstein said. “They’re not going to be made because you’re trying to turn something into a way to get yourself on TV, to show that you’re doing something, but actually focusing on what is going to make Colorado a better, healthier, safer place. And I know Michael to be that guy.”

Fifth Judicial District Attorney Heidi McCollum, a Democrat and the elected prosecutor for Eagle, Lake, Summit and Clear Creek counties, said Rubenstein demonstrated the right approach in the Peters case.

“The application of the law is not supposed to be based on someone’s gender or someone’s color of their skin or someone’s political party, and unfortunately, that’s where we are at right now,” she said. Calling the potential overturning of Peters’ conviction “an injustice to us all,” McCollum added: “DA Rubinstein prosecuted that case not because of any particular political party. Quite frankly, he showed a great deal of integrity in doing what he did, because it was the right thing to do, and that’s the kind of leader we need in in the attorney general’s office.”

Brian Mason, the 17th Judicial District attorney, who prosecutes cases in Adams County and Broomfield and considered running for attorney general before endorsing Dougherty, said it’s a given that the Democrats running for the office will endeavor to take on Trump.

“I know each of these candidates, and every single one of them is going to say that they’re a fighter, and I believe each one of them is,” Mason said. “The question is, who is best equipped to actually take that fight and to lead that fight? It’s one thing to say, ‘I’m going to fight against the Trump administration.’ It’s another to have the legal prowess and legal acumen to actually know how to file the case, lead the case, oversee the case, and win the case. Those are two very separate things.”

Mason said that Dougherty, who helped run the 1,300-employee Manhattan District Attorney’s Office before joining the Colorado attorney general’s office two decades ago, has “the experience and the management chops” to do it.

“This is an office that is going to be undertaking a lot of litigation in a variety of ways, and it’s important that the leader of that organization, the leader of that law office, be somebody who has a history in litigation, who understands it, who understands the limited resources that the law office has and is always looking out for what is best for Colorado,” Mason said, adding, “There’s a lot of noise out there, and a lot of things that can get distracting, and a lot of rabbit holes that people can go down for political reasons that really doesn’t serve the interest of Colorado and the interest of evenly applying the rules of law to the entire state.”