Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced a run for governor yesterday. As The Denver Post‘s Kurtis Lee reports:

The ability to break the status quo and defeat Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper’s “good ol’ boy network” will be a difficult task, but Secretary of State Scott Gessler said Tuesday he’s the most qualified Republican for the job…

Gessler ticked off a list of achievements as the state’s top elections chief, accomplishments that range from making the state among the first in the country to have online secure-lien filings to increasing voter turnout between the 2008 and 2012 general elections…

Flanked by former U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer and state Rep. Clarice Navarro-Ratzlaff, R-Pueblo, Gessler — whose parents, wife, Kristi, and daughter were also in attendance — called Hickenlooper’s leadership style “TBD — to be determined.”

“Our governor is channeling Mark Twain’s old joke: ‘Never put off to tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow,’ ” Gessler said, noting Hickenlooper’s temporary reprieve in May of a convicted murderer who had been scheduled to die in August.

Gessler’s announcement leaves an open Secretary of State race for 2014. He joins State Senator Greg Brophy and former Congressman Tom Tancredo in the growing Republican primary field.