Dear readers, when you open The Durango Herald next Saturday, you’ll notice our Weekend Opinion cover page has undergone a bit of reconstruction for election season. Weekend Opinion will be the section cover of 1B, trading places with Southwest Life on the back page of the section, until after the midterms.

We’re rearranging to highlight significant races. In fact, we’ve asked candidates to speak directly to Southwest voters by writing their own guest columns on why they should be reelected or replace incumbents. (For consistency, incumbents’ columns will be on the left side of the page.)

To kick off our coverage, we’re starting with a defining race that carries much weight – governor of Colorado. Gov. Jared Polis and challenger Heidi Ganahl will make their cases, in their words, as to why they are worthy of this job. Every Saturday, candidates from other notable races – county commissioner hopefuls to those who could represent us in the U.S. Senate and House – will pitch to win your vote.

We regret that we can’t give every candidate in every race this opportunity.

As a special treat, our fantastic, versatile in-house editorial cartoonist Wes Rowell will turn his creative talents toward illustrating portraits of these candidates. His insightful, irreverent cartoons will return after the elections.

It’s a veritable election factory at the Herald these days with the planning and execution of our editorial coverage so voters can make thoughtful, informed decisions.

You, readers, too, are part of this grand election plan, so please keep your letters to the editor coming. We value and appreciate them.

For now, we’ll return to our construction zone and the business of midterm elections in Southwest Colorado. We look forward to conversations with you.

– Ann Marie Swan, Opinion Editor