Republican Victor Marx won Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial nomination on Thursday after maintaining a razor-thin lead over state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer for more than a week as county clerks finished reporting final, unofficial vote totals.

Marx, a missionary leader and first-time candidate, will face Democratic nominee Attorney General Phil Weiser in November for the office held by term-limited Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.

Weiser defeated U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in their party’s primary by a nearly 14-point margin, while Marx prevailed over Kirkmeyer by just over 2,500 votes, or roughly one-half of 1 percentage point.

After nearly nine days of considering the Republican primary too close to call, the Associated Press declared Marx the winner at 4:08 p.m. Thursday, after the last of Colorado’s 64 counties posted updated vote results.

Marx led with 208,085 votes to Kirkmeyer’s 205,570, for a difference of 2,515, or about 0.48% of the 521,938 votes tallied. State Rep. Scott Bottoms trailed with 108,283 votes.

Marx’s lead over Kirkmeyer appeared to fall well outside the margin that would trigger an automatic recount.

Marx thanked supporters in a video posted online shortly after the AP called the race.

“The primary is over, which was kind of like the playoffs, and now the real mission begins, which is the Super Bowl for Colorado families,” Marx said, adding that he was speaking to everyone who agrees that the state “is not the way our Founding Fathers envisioned it 150 years ago.”

Calling Weiser “a smart fella,” Marx said his general election opponent “represents the current system, because he is a part of it, and that current system has made Colorado more expensive, less safe and harder for regular families to trust government.”

Marx went on to describe what he termed his campaign’s “Colorado Works Better” plan, which he said is to “make government more accountable, transparent, efficient and focused on results that save you money.”

Weiser greeted Marx’s nomination by calling the Republican “a threat to our state’s values and our future.”

“From the little we know about Victor Marx, his views and style are far out of step with Coloradans, and his nomination for governor is a threat to our state’s values and our future,” Weiser said in a statement. “Governing is serious business, and Coloradans have a clear choice in this race: a politics of showing up, listening, and fighting for the rights and freedoms of all — or a politics of deception, demonization, and distraction. As governor, I’ll meet this moment by fighting against lawlessness and corruption and for a brighter future for all Coloradans.”

Kirkmeyer said in a statement that she was “incredibly proud of the campaign we built and the race we ran” but stopped short of endorsing her former primary opponent.

“Together, we offered a clear vision for the future of the Colorado Republican Party, one rooted in common sense, hard work, affordability, and the values that made Colorado the best place to live, work, and raise a family,” Kirkmeyer said, noting that her campaign “came up short” in what appears to be the closest Republican gubernatorial primary in state history.

Added Kirkmeyer: “Now the voters will make the final decision in November, and I hope they choose the path that is best for Colorado. I’m still proud of the campaign we ran … and, for the record, I still haven’t killed anyone.”

The last remark appears to be a reference to Marx’s repeated assertion that he was forced by his abusive stepfather to kill a man when he was only 7 years old. In a recent televised interview with 9News anchor Kyle Clark, Marx declined to say whether he’s killed more people as an adult, adding, “Does it matter?”

Although Marx maintained a roughly 2,000-vote lead over Kirkmeyer for more than a week, both candidates said they planned to wait to declare the race was over until potentially thousands of additional votes had been counted, including “cured” ballots and ballots cast by military and overseas voters.

“We are optimistic about where the race stands, but we are also respecting the process and not taking anything for granted until the counties complete their work,” Marx’s campaign manager, Buddy Jericho, told Colorado Politics on Monday.

“The race is not over,” Kirkmeyer said Tuesday in a statement. “There are still ballots left to count, including overseas ballots and ballots that can still be cured. Every legal vote deserves to be counted before the people of Colorado know the final outcome.”

The three-way primary pitted Marx, a first-time candidate and self-described “high-risk” missionary from Colorado Springs, against Kirkmeyer, who has held state and Weld County offices for nearly three decades, and Bottoms, an Assemblies of God pastor and state lawmaker from El Paso County serving his second term.

Colorado voters last elected a Republican governor in 2002, when Bill Owens won his second term, becoming the only Republican to hold the office in the last 50 years.

Marx’s two primary opponents said earlier that they plan to withhold their endorsements, with Bottoms characterizing his fellow Christian ministry leader as a liar and a “con man,” and Kirkmeyer calling Marx unfit for office.

“It could be the extinction of the Republican Party,” Kirkmeyer said last month at a debate sponsored by 9News and Colorado Politics, asserting that if Marx led the GOP ticket in the general election, it could drag down the party’s candidates up and down the ballot.

“He’s unfit. By his own words, he says he’s unfit,” she added. “He talks about homicidal and suicidal tendencies. It makes me worried to be in a room with him.”

At the June 2 debate — the only time Marx shared a debate stage with his two primary opponents — Marx responded to Bottoms, “You’re mean,” and told Kirkmeyer, “Kinda mean, too, Barb.” He added: “Just because somebody doesn’t believe the truth, it doesn’t make it a lie.”

In Colorado, voters have until eight days after the election to cure their ballots if they forgot to sign the ballot envelope, if the ballot signature doesn’t match signatures on file, or if they are first-time mail-in voters who forgot to include a copy of their ID.

The Marx and Kirkmeyer campaigns both said they mobilized volunteers to encourage voters whose ballots had been rejected to cure them. Similar efforts by Colorado candidates in recent years have swung the results in extremely close elections, though it’s been rare.

The deadline to cure ballots was 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night, according to state law. Military and overseas ballots postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day had to be received by the same deadline.

An automatic recount is triggered under Colorado law when the margin between the two top finishers is 0.5% or less of the leading candidate’s vote total. In the Republican gubernatorial race, the difference between Marx’s and Kirkmeyer’s totals would have to shrink to 1,040 or fewer votes to trigger a recount as of 4 p.m. Thursday.

Editor’s note: This developing story has been updated.