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Jared Polis
2019 Icon
Governor of Colorado
b. May 12, 1975
“I'm in this fight to build a Colorado economy that works for everyone.”
A member of the Democratic Party, Jared Polis is the first openly gay person—and only the second openly LGBT person—to be elected governor in the United States. A gifted entrepreneur and well-known philanthropist, he previously served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Colorado State Board of Education.
Polis was born to a Jewish family in Boulder, Colorado. He studied politics at Princeton University and started his first business, American Information Systems, in his college dorm room. By age 30, he had launched and sold three successful companies, including ProFlowers, one of the world’s leading online flower retailers. Passionate about education, he founded two innovative charter schools serving at-risk and immigrant youth and the Jared Polis Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports Colorado educators. He has used his wealth to generously support progressive causes.
Polis entered politics in 2000. In one of the closest races in Colorado history, he was elected to the State Board of Education, where he served until 2007. In 2008 he won a heavily contested election for U.S. representative of Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District. In his five terms in Congress, he co-introduced numerous legislative measures concerning education and affordable housing, including the 2011 Race to the Top Act, which rewards innovation and reforms in K-12 education. One of the first openly gay people and the first gay parent elected to the House of Representatives, he served as co-chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus and pushed for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.
In 2018 Polis was elected the 43rd governor of Colorado in a double-digit landslide. He campaigned to build a state economy that “works for everyone” and on issues such as education, lowering the cost of health care and transitioning to renewable energy. One of his top legislative priorities, state-paid full-day kindergarten, was signed into law in 2019.
On September 15, 2021, Polis married his longtime partner, Marlon Reis. The wedding was the first same-sex marriage of a sitting governor in U.S. history. Polis and Reis have two children.
