Evans brought in more than $1.2 million during the first three months of 2026, according to federal campaign finance reports due Wednesday. He ended March with more than $3.4 million in the bank. That’s an eye-watering sum, easily surpassing the roughly $2 million that Evans’ Democratic predecessor, then-U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, had gathered at the same point in early 2024.

Evans has no primary challenger, meaning he won’t need to start seriously spending his cash until after his Democratic opponent emerges from the June 30 primary.

In other federal races, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper significantly outraised a state senator challenging him in the Democratic primary, while another incumbent — Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert — was outraised by an even greater factor by her only remaining Democratic challenger in the state’s most conservative-leaning district.

The race for Evans’ 8th Congressional District seat, which sits in a rural-suburban area north of Denver, will be among the most closely watched contests in the country this fall. Two of the Democrats hoping to topple Evans have started marshalling their own financial resources.

State Rep. Manny Rutinel posted a strong quarter, hauling in more than $952,000 to bring his cash-on-hand total to more than $1.76 million. He raised more — and has banked more — than his former state House colleague, Shannon Bird, who joined the race a few months after Rutinel last year.

Bird raised nearly $567,000 in early 2026, and she ended the quarter with just over $1 million to play with as the primary season entered its final three-month stretch.

The third Democrat in the race, Marine veteran Evan Munsing, has outlasted several more established candidates — including Caraveo, who mounted a brief comeback campaign last year. But his fundraising has slipped farther behind Rutinel’s and Bird’s: Munsing raked in $115,000 last quarter, and he spent almost double that.

As a consequence, his cash pile has been halved, from the $213,000 at the end of 2025 to $108,000 at the end of March.

Between the three Democrats and Evans, the CD8 candidates raised more than $2.8 million over the last three months. Between them, the four candidates have nearly $6.4 million on hand.

More than half of that pile lies, waiting, in Evans’ coffers.

“I’m grateful for the outpouring of support from Coloradans who are ready to keep fighting for safer communities, a stronger economy and a more secure future,” Evans said in a statement Wednesday.

Here’s what else was revealed by the latest federal campaign finance reports, which came out just after the major parties’ primary ballots were finalized through assembly votes and petitioning.

Hickenlooper’s haul grows for primary challenge

In his Senate reelection race, Hickenlooper raised nearly $1.4 million last quarter, the first full reporting period since his primary challenger, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, entered the race. That’s more than he raised in the prior quarter.

Though he spent more than $1.2 million in the early part of 2026, the incumbent Democrat will still enter primary season with a hefty $4 million in the bank.

Gonzales, meanwhile, has reported more anemic fundraising. She raised more than $264,000 this past quarter, compared with the nearly $180,000 she posted in her first month in late 2025, showing a slowing pace. Her most recent total in the bank sat at just over $114,000.

In a blog post Wednesday, Gonzales acknowledged that her campaign was “living paycheck to paycheck.” But she appeared undaunted and said she raised $130,000 in the first week of April, after the reporting period’s end.

DeGette’s balance grows as challenger picks up pace

A different primary challenge is brewing in Denver’s 1st Congressional District.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who’s been in Congress for nearly 30 years, is facing two Democratic opponents: University of Colorado Regent Wanda James and Melat Kiros, a lawyer and doctoral student who last month beat DeGette in an assembly nominating vote.

Whether that victory translates to an incumbent-toppling result in June remains to be seen. DeGette raised more than $263,000 last quarter, a bit more than she’d raised at the end of 2025. Her cash-on-hand total ticked up, too, and now sits at $636,000.

Kiros also saw a boost, bringing in more than $174,000, double her prior quarter’s total. With $118,000 in the bank, she trailed DeGette’s total entering primary season.

James’ fundraising went the opposite way. The regent raised more than $72,000 last quarter, below her fourth-quarter total last year. Her spending also ticked up, bringing her cash on hand down to just more than $54,000.

Boebert challenger keeps raking in cash. Will it matter?

Among Colorado’s incumbents in Congress, Boebert has long been a fundraising lightning rod. That remains true, even as she settles into the comfortably conservative 4th Congressional District, which covers Colorado’s Eastern Plains as well as Douglas County, after a district switch in the last election.

Eileen Laubacher, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, raised more than $2 million for the second consecutive quarter. After a big spend of $1.5 million, she still ended the quarter with more than $3 million in her campaign’s pocket. Another Democratic candidate, Trisha Calvarese, also had raised big money in her second run against Boebert before she dropped out two weeks ago.

Boebert, in contrast, raised just under $90,000 in the last three months, and she reported $160,000 on hand in late March.

It’s important to remember that Boebert now represents a district where, in a 2021 analysis, by more than 26 percentage points. In 2024, Boebert’s win wasn’t even half that — and .

Hurd amasses cash to defend Western Slope seat

In Boebert’s old 3rd Congressional District, her erstwhile Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, is looking to defend a seat that’s reliably, if not comfortably, red. Hurd raised more than $609,000 last quarter, bringing his war chest to just under $2 million.

He also picked up a primary opponent at the Colorado Republican Party assembly last week — former state Rep. Ron Hanks — but his fundraising advantage is hefty.

Two Democrats are jockeying to take on Hurd in November. Alex Kelloff, a Snowmass businessman, has been in the race longer. He raised $192,000 last quarter, adding a bit to his cash-on-hand total of $458,000.

Kelloff’s newcomer primary opponent, fellow businessman Dwayne Romero, raised more than $505,000 in his first month in the race, and, after expenses, had slighty more on hand than Kelloff.

Democrat brings in cash to flip Colorado Springs district

Colorado’s other Jeff among Republican congressmen — Hurd’s fellow freshman, U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank —  raised $345,000 last quarter as he looks to defend the conservative 5th Congressional District. Crank’s war chest now tops $1.1 million.

His likely opponent, Democrat Jessica Killin, brought in nearly $670,000, bringing her on-hand total to more than $1.5 million. Army veteran Joe Reagan, who is challenging Killin for the Democratic nomination, raised $86,000 and ended the first quarter with $33,000 in the bank.

Democrats have been targeting the district, which — after Boebert’s current seat — is the most conservative in the state.

Incumbents’ cash hauls

While DeGette looks to ward off her primary opponents, Colorado’s three other Democratic members of Congress are without well-known Republican challengers. But they’re still slowly building up their campaign bank accounts.

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, of the Boulder-based 2nd Congressional District, brought his cash on hand to just under $3 million last quarter. U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, of Aurora’s 6th Congressional District, raked in nearly $940,000 to start 2026 (which, his campaign said, was his largest single-quarter haul), and he had more than $2.5 million under his campaign mattress.

U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, whose 7th Congressional District covers the center of the state up through parts of metro Denver, had more than $915,000 on hand.

Those sums will allow the Democrats to support not only their own campaigns but others’ races and causes, too. Crow’s latest campaign finance report listed a nearly $60,000 contribution to the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, for instance, while Neguse gave $35,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Both men will appear on the June 30 primary ballot. Bottoms, who is one of the most conservative lawmakers in the state Capitol, won slightly more than 45% of the 2,145 ballots cast, comfortably beating Marx’s 39% and topping a field of more than a dozen candidates who vied for gubernatorial ballot access. When Marx’s total was announced and Bottoms’ victory assured, the lawmaker’s supporters shouted and jumped around him in the bleachers of Colorado State University-Pueblo’s arena.

“This is our year. This is the year we’re going to do this,” Bottoms, who is in his second term in the statehouse, said in brief remarks earlier Saturday. He promised to work with federal immigration authorities, to build nuclear reactors and to “reclaim safety and security.” He also pledged to “DOGE the mess out of everything in this state,” a reference to billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” which gutted a number of federal programs last year.

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, who also is running for governor, did not participate in the assembly process and has instead submitted signatures to appear on the primary ballot. Marx also submitted signatures while also seeking the assembly nomination.

The party also nominated state Sen. Mark Baisley for U.S. Senate, former Colorado Libertarian Party official James Wiley for secretary of state, and Fremont County Commissioner Kevin Grantham for state treasurer. All those candidates will be appear on the ballot alone in June, virtually assuring them places on the November general election ballot.

For attorney general, the assembly sent Michael Allen, the district attorney in El Paso County, and attorney David Willson to the primary election in June.

The day was marred by delays, mistakes, long lines and, as afternoon turned into evening, a voting discrepency: About 80 more ballots had been cast than delegates had been credentialed to cast them. The assembly then voted to accept the new ballots as legitimate (the official running the meeting said they likely were).

The winner of the June gubernatorial primary will face off against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet or Attorney General Phil Weiser, each of whom are seeking the Democratic nomination to replace Gov. Jared Polis next year.

The Republican candidates who emerge from the primaries will face a Colorado Democratic Party that has held all four constitutional statewide offices since 2018. No Republican has won the governor’s office since 2002, and the last statewide win for a GOP candidate was Heidi Ganahl’s win for a University of Colorado governing board seat in 2016.

Repubican contenders repeatedly promised to reverse those trends Saturday. Eighteen gubernatorial candidates initially were slated to speak, although several didn’t turn up and their candidacies did not advance. One candidate — Kelvin “K-Man” Wimberly — appeared to have no supporters present to nominate him. That prompted someone from the crowd to run up to the microphone, gesture to Wimberly and offer to nominate “this guy.”

As party members slowly trickled into the building Saturday morning, campaign volunteers wandered, handing out bags with posters for Marx or walking in slow arcs with signs for fellow chief executive hopeful Robert Moore. Scott Pond, who hopes to take on U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper in November, signed a pair of baseball caps for one supporter. Many attendees — including the conspiratorial podcaster Joe Oltmann — wore “Free Tina Peters” stickers, a sentiment echoed by a banner hanging behind the assembly stage.

Several candidates, including Marx, pledged to free the former Mesa County clerk, who was convicted for orchestrating a plot to sneak a third party into a secure area to examine voting equipment after the 2020 election.

Oltmann briefly ran for governor before declaring his candidacy to become the state GOP’s chairman.

On Friday, former state lawmaker Ron Hanks was nominated to launch a right-wing primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, the freshman Republican who represents the Western Slope’s 3rd Congressional District. Hurd’s previous primary opponent, Hope Scheppelman, dropped out of the contest last month, after President Donald Trump re-endorsed Hurd.

In a Friday, Trump announced that he was re-endorsing U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd to hold the Western Slope seat he won two years ago. Trump also said he was going to hire Hurd’s conservative primary challenger, Hope Scheppelman, whom the president had endorsed just last month after Hurd opposed some of Trump’s tariffs.

Trump said he would bring Scheppelman and her husband into his administration, “in a capacity to be determined.”

“Together with (Scheppleman and her husband), we decided that Congressman Jeff Hurd, of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, should in no way, shape, or form, be impeded from winning the District in that the Democrat alternative is a DISASTER for our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Scheppelman, a former Colorado Republican Party official who had accused Hurd of being too liberal and siding with Democrats, said in a statement Friday afternoon that she was suspending her campaign after deciding to “put America First and do all I can to help ensure that the radical leaders in the Democrat Party do not take this seat.”

, Hurd thanked Trump for his support.

“I’m grateful for President Trump’s support and appreciate his efforts to unify Republicans in Colorado’s Third District,” he wrote. “The President and I share the same goals: securing the border, American energy dominance, and helping working families.”

Scheppelman included a dig at Hurd in her statement:  “Jeff Hurd now has the opportunity to correct his naive voting record and support President Trump, and our slim Republican majority in the U.S. House, in our shared battle to save the country we love. If he does not, I will run again in 2028 and defeat him in order to give the citizens of Colorado’s 3rd district, and all of America, the representation we deserve.”

The Republican president had Hurd in October, only to yank back his support in February.

Earlier that month, Hurd joined several other House Republicans in opposing tariffs on Canada in a floor vote, prompting Trump to throw his support behind Scheppelman and call Hurd a “RINO,” or Republican in name only.

The president had previously warned that any Republican who opposed his tariffs would “seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries.”

Trump’s re-endorsement comes as House Republicans cling to a bare majority, while polling ahead of November’s midterms show Democrats leading Republicans on a generic ballot by . Republicans are comfortably favored in the 3rd Congressional District, but the seat’s red hue is not guaranteed: Colorado Democrats put a scare into Western Slope Republicans in 2022, when Adam Frisch came fewer than 550 votes shy of beating U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.

The close call prompted Boebert to switch to the even more conservative 4th Congressional District on the state’s Eastern Plains, making way for the more moderate Hurd to march to a 5-point win in 2024.

This time, with Scheppelman’s withdrawal, Hurd is set to win an uncontested Republican primary in June. Two Democrats — Alex Kelloff and Dwayne Romero — are set to compete in that election for the chance to face Hurd in November.

Dwayne Romero on Tuesday announced his candidacy for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District — which covers western and southern Colorado, including much of the Western Slope, the San Luis Valley and Pueblo. , a businessman from Old Snowmass, .

Both men aim to unseat freshman Republican U.S. Rep. , a Grand Junction attorney elected to the seat in 2024. In the Republican primary, Hurd faces Hope Scheppelman, a former Colorado Republican Party vice chair who’s now endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Romero, who now lives in Snowmass Village, moved to Colorado in 1997 after serving in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer, during which he was deployed in the Persian Gulf War. He lived in Carbondale for six years before moving to Aspen in 2003. He runs a real estate company in the Roaring Fork Valley called the Romero Group.

He previously served on the Aspen School District’s board, the Aspen City Council, and the boards of the Aspen Fire Protection District and the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority. He also spent a year as the state’s chief economic development director under then-Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Trump pulls back endorsement of U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd after he bucked president on tariff vote

He emphasized his military service in his announcement as well as his upbringing as the child of a single mom who relied on food stamps to make ends meet.

Kelloff's campaign points to his family's deep roots in western Colorado, which stretch back four generations. Kelloff co-founded Armada Skis and spent the majority of his career working for several large investment firms.

Both Kelloff and Romero pledged to push back against President Donald Trump's administration, including opposing budget cuts to social services.

"I'm running for Congress because Jeff Hurd and Donald Trump have taken too much," Romero .

In 2024, Hurd 50.8% to 45.8%. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report , which before Hurd was represented by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, as "likely Republican" in this year's midterm election.

Trump wrote in a social media post Saturday that the freshman Republican’s recent vote to cancel the president’s tariffs on Canada left Hurd as “one of a small number of legislators who have let me and our country down.”

The president instead threw his weight behind the more politically conservative Hope Scheppelman in her June primary against Hurd. She is a former vice chair of the Colorado Republican Party and a hospital corpsman with the U.S. Navy.

Scheppelman, who lives in Bayfield, has worked in the healthcare field for 35 years and is a critical care nurse practitioner.

Trump, in his , said Scheppelman had his “complete and total endorsement to be the next representative from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.” He called Hurd a RINO — a Republican in name only — and said it was only the second time he had rescinded an endorsement.

Hurd was one of just six Republicans to join nearly all House Democrats earlier this month in — a rare instance of Congress trying to assert its authority over the Trump administration. The Feb. 11 vote came less than two weeks before the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday striking down many of the global tariffs Trump had imposed using emergency powers.

Without mentioning the president by name, Hurd late Saturday that “every vote I cast is guided by what is best for this district and the long-term strength of our country.”

“Leadership requires independent judgment and the willingness to stand on principle,” Hurd wrote. “My focus remains on delivering results for rural Colorado. That����ap the job I was elected to do — and I’ll keep doing it with conviction, optimism, and a deep gratitude for the people I serve.”

Hurd, who represents many farmers and ranchers on Colorado’s West Slope and beyond, has long questioned whether Trump was improperly stepping on congressional authority by imposing import taxes that he argued are the proper province of Congress — an argument the Supreme Court justices advanced in their 6-3 decision Friday.

Scheppelman on X , saying she was “honored to have the president����ap trust and support to be his partner in protecting jobs and creating economic opportunity for the American people.”

“I will not let the people of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District down,” she wrote.

Neither Hurd nor Scheppelman could be reached for comment Monday. The Republican primary for the right-leaning district, Colorado’s largest by geography, is June 30.

Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney, has staked out in the fundraising game, collecting in this election cycle more than $2.3 million as of the end of last year. Scheppelman had raised just over $200,000 at the same point.

If Hurd prevails in the June primary, he will likely face Democrat Alex Kelloff in November. Kelloff, who helped found Armada Skis as part of a career in the financial industry, is unopposed on the Democratic side. He had raised $854,000 as of the end of 2025.

Hurd comfortably won the 2024 Colorado Republican primary against five opponents, a contest prompted by Rep. Lauren Boebert’s decision to abandon the district she had represented in Congress for more than three years to run in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District.

Hurd went on to defeat a heavily financed Democratic opponent in the general election that year.

Colorado features one of the closest congressional races in the nation — the 8th Congressional District, which covers a stretch of suburbs and farmland north of Denver. Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper has attracted a few intraparty challengers to his reelection bid, though he handily outraised them in the final quarter of 2025.

In Colorado’s ruby red 4th Congressional District, incumbent Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert trailed badly in the fundraising game in the last quarter of last year, though the Democrats trying to send her packing have a tough road ahead given the district’s political makeup.

Here’s a closer look at where donors are lining up in Colorado’s most competitive congressional contests, along with a glance at the U.S. Senate race. The three districts represented by Democratic incumbent Congress members , and are largely without political intrigue so far in this election cycle.

The latest numbers from the Federal Election Commission cover the period from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2025.

Evans’ reelection race

The 8th Congressional District is the race the political chattering classes often point to as one that could decide the balance of power in the U.S. House, given its ultra-competitive nature. Cook Political Report , with Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans hoping to retain power for a second term.

He beat former Rep. Yadira Caraveo , a Democrat, in 2024 by fewer than 3,000 votes.

Evans managed to outraise the competition in the fourth quarter of 2025, but not significantly. The former state lawmaker and police officer pulled down nearly $487,000 and now has around $2.55 million of cash on hand. His closest competitor, Democratic state Rep. Manny Rutinel, raised nearly $419,000 and has around $1.2 million in the bank.

Rutinel has actually outraised Evans for the entire election cycle — $2.5 million to $1.85 million, according to FEC data. He also spent the most in the field last quarter — $230,000.

Former Democratic state Rep. Shannon Bird, who resigned from the Colorado General Assembly in December to put full focus on the 8th District race, collected $375,000 from donors in the fourth quarter, adding to the nearly $1 million she had raised before Oct. 1.

Marine combat veteran and finance professional Evan Munsing pulled in $225,000 during the quarter. The Democrat has more than $213,000 in his war chest.

Boebert outraised by Democrats

Republican firebrand Boebert, the incumbent in the sprawling 4th District on the Eastern Plains, had an anemic showing in the most recent filing with the FEC. Collecting less than $150,000 in the final quarter of 2025, she trailed Democratic challenger Eileen Laubacher by a massive margin.

Laubacher, a Navy veteran and rear admiral, had the biggest haul of the quarter of any candidate running for Congress in Colorado. She pulled down just over $2 million, bringing her contribution total in the election cycle to nearly $6.5 million. She sits on a pile of more than $2.5 million in cash compared to Boebert’s $219,000.

Laubacher also spent a hefty $1.5 million on her election effort last quarter.

Trisha Calvarese, the Democratic nominee who lost to Boebert in 2024, had an impressive haul — just over $1 million in the fourth quarter — but was only at about half of what Laubacher took in. Still, Calvarese has more than twice Boebert’s cash on hand, with $518,000 in the bank.

Democratic contenders John Padora, who has run for the 4th District before, and Jenna Preston each collected around $20,000 last quarter. Preston, a clinical psychologist, has nearly $53,000 in cash on hand to Padora’s less than $9,000.

Crank’s strong money challenge

Another firmly Republican district, Colorado’s 5th will give Democrat Jessica Killin a run for her money as she tries to oust Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank. A former U.S. Army captain and chief of staff to former second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Killin jumped into the race last summer.

Her fundraising prowess has been impressive, and she collected around $611,000 in the fourth quarter. That brings her total for the cycle to more than $1.6 million. Crank pulled in just over $280,000 for the quarter. Killin holds a cash-on-hand advantage of $1.1 million to Crank’s more than $968,000.

But Crank won the seat, which encompasses Colorado Springs, by 14 percentage points over his Democratic opponent in 2024.

The race has attracted several other Democratic challengers, including unsuccessful 2024 contender Joseph Reagan, but none have come close to matching Killin’s haul.

Quieter money race in CD3 this time

Gone are the days of eye-popping money in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, when Boebert was being challenged by Democrat Adam Frisch before she switched districts to the 4th in the waning days of 2023.

Frisch, a former Aspen city councilman who raised more than $12 million in the 2024 election cycle, lost to Republican Jeff Hurd in the right-leaning district that primarily covers the western stretch of the state.

Hurd’s Democratic challenger this cycle, San Luis Valley native Alex Kelloff, raised $65,000 in the final quarter of 2025 — compared to Hurd’s $240,000 haul. Kelloff has $434,000 cash on hand while Hurd’s pile has grown to more than $1.57 million.

But Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney who is in his first term in Congress, must first fend off a candidate to his right in the June 30 primary — former Colorado Republican Vice Chairwoman Hope Scheppelman.

However, the difference in fundraising is stark. Scheppelman raised around $43,000 last quarter, according to FEC numbers, and has less than a tenth of Hurd’s war chest.

James, Kiros take on DeGette

Democrat Diana DeGette is Colorado’s longest-serving member of Congress — by a long shot. But she has several candidates in her party to fend off in June before standing for reelection in November in what will be an attempt at her 16th term in office in the 1st Congressional District.

Most notable is Wanda James, a University of Colorado regent and marijuana entrepreneur, who raised more than $78,000 in 2025’s final quarter. That total brings her cash on hand to $93,000. Attorney Melat Kiros, a native of Ethiopia, nearly matched James’ take at $77,500 but has less in the bank — with cash on hand of $64,000.

Meanwhile, DeGette pulled in nearly $249,000 last quarter and sits on a pile of $535,000 in cash on hand.

No Republicans have raised any money in the Denver-centered race so far.

U.S. Senate primary shapes up

In Colorado’s lone Senate race, Hickenlooper was the king of fundraising last quarter. He reported collecting more than $936,000 from donors. The former Denver mayor and Colorado governor, who is in his first term in the Senate, has a war chest of nearly $3.9 million.

He is being challenged on the left by state Sen. Julie Gonzales, who jumped into the race in December. In less than a month, the Democrat managed to pull in nearly $180,000 and has nearly $161,000 cash on hand.

University of Colorado political science professor Karen Breslin is also challenging Hickenlooper in the June primary. The Democrat raised just over $58,000 last quarter and has just $7,000 in the bank.

Several Republicans are also in the race. Janak Joshi, a former state lawmaker who unsuccessfully ran for the 8th Congressional District in 2024, collected the most in the fourth quarter, with just over $60,000, and had nearly $350,000 cash on hand.

George Markert, a U.S. Marine for more than 30 years, took in $55,000 last quarter and sits on nearly $73,000 in cash, according to FEC filings.

State Sen. Mark Baisley of Woodland Park switched in early January — after the end of the reporting period — to the U.S. Senate primary from the crowded GOP primary in the Colorado governor’s race.

The Republican who represents Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes Pueblo County, said in that “the state’s politically driven rush to decommission otherwise safe, reliable, and efficient generation” could leave Colorado short of reliable sources of electricity.

Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electric utility, closed a unit of the coal facility in 2022 and plans to close another by the end of this year. The third and last unit at the site is scheduled to shut down by the end of 2030.

Comanche 3 is Xcel’s largest generating unit in Colorado, but one plagued by chronic malfunctions and breakdowns. And it’s one that hasn’t run since mid-August and might not be operational again until next summer.

Comanche will be Xcel’s last coal plant in Colorado when it closes. The company decided to shut the plant earlier than planned as questions about its reliability grew and moves to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions intensified.

Xcel Energy has proposed replacing the coal plant with wind and solar power, battery storage and natural gas generation.

But some Pueblo County business and political leaders say Xcel’s plan, which was endorsed by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, won’t replace the jobs and tax revenue the Comanche plant has provided to the community for years. The advisory group Pueblo Innovative Energy Solutions Advisory Committee, formed in cooperation with Xcel, recommended that the coal plant be replaced by natural gas or small, modular nuclear reactors.

In September, the Pueblo County commissioners filed a document with regulators saying they would ask President Donald Trump and Wright to order that the coal plants in the county keep running until a new energy facility is built that can provide the kind of jobs and revenue that Xcel’s coal facilities have.

The plant generates approximately $200 million per year in economic activity and $31 million annually in property tax revenue,  according to a report by the Pueblo advisory committee.

Trump has championed coal and nuclear power as energy sources while attacking renewable energy. The administration issued to keep coal plants in Michigan and Pennsylvania operating despite plans to retire them.

Hurd said in his letter to Wright, a fellow Coloradan, that the Comanche power plant is “a cornerstone of electric reliability in the region” and a lifeline for Pueblo County. A message was left with Hurd asking if he has concerns about Comanche 3’s operational troubles.

A message was also left with the Department of Energy asking whether Wright is considering issuing an order to keep the coal plant running until a new source of power generation begins operating.

“We are in regular conversations about Colorado’s energy future with various stakeholders, including federal, state and local elected officials. We are aware that there are members of the community that would like to see the plant’s life extended,” Xcel Energy spokeswoman Michelle Aguayo said in an email Friday.

Aguayo added that Colorado regulations call for the closing of Comanche 2 at the end of 2025. She said the unit has been a reliable part of Xcel’s generation fleet since1975.

“We are also aware that federal actions can extend plants of this nature,” Aguayo said. “We will comply with any orders issued by the Department of Energy to extend our coal plants if ordered to do so.”

Adams County Commissioner Emma Pinter called Hurd’s letter to Wright “beyond disappointing.”

“Keeping this unreliable and polluting coal plant open is going to cost Coloradans tens – maybe hundreds – of millions of dollars, and it����ap not even necessary. There’s no energy emergency in Colorado,” Pinter said in an email.

Pinter is president of

Updated Nov. 1, 2025, at 5:19 p.m. to correct Emma Pinter’s position.

The three Democrats vying to challenge Boebert in 2026 for the 4th Congressional District reported raising more than $3 million this past quarter in filings due Wednesday night. Retired Rear Adm. Eileen Laubacher continues to account for the vast majority of the money, nearly $2.5 million in the third quarter. She has raised more than $4.4 million since she declared for the seat in May.

Trisha Calvarese, who lost to Boebert in 2024, reported raising about $504,000 this quarter, for a total haul of about $650,000 this cycle. And John Padora raised about $24,000 this quarter, and $61,000 total this cycle.

As for Boebert, who’s seeking her fourth term in office and the second representing the sprawling eastern Colorado 4th District — after a switch from the 3rd Congressional District — the incumbent reported raising about $110,000 during the third quarter. She’s raised $712,000 total this cycle.

The new campaign finance reports covered July 1 through Sept. 30. The primary elections are in June and the general election is in November 2026.

Boebert ended the last election cycle having spent , $5.3 million to $4.2 million, yet she won by more than 11 percentage points in the 2024 election.

Gabe Evans keeps advantage in tight CD8 race

Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, who represents the state’s most competitive district — from the northern Denver suburbs up through Greeley — reported raising more than $615,000 over the past quarter. That was more than the top Democratic candidates individually, but did not quite outpace their joint haul.

On the Democratic side, state Rep. Manny Rutinel continues to lead state Rep. Shannon Bird, raising $493,000 to her $387,000 in the third quarter. His total haul also crested $2 million raised since he announced his campaign at the start of the year. Bird, who launched her campaign in May, has raised a total of $833,000.

Evans, hoping to be the first incumbent reelected in the 8th Congressional District, the state’s newest seat, has reported a total haul of $2.3 million this year. (He also has a joint fundraising account with the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Thin Blue Line PAC and the Hispanic Leadership Trust that has pulled in $311,000 this year.)

He won the seat in 2024 by fewer than 3,000 votes. Next year’s race is widely expected to be one of the costliest in the country.

In the El Paso County-based 5th Congressional District, Democrat Jessica Killin doubled the haul of incumbent U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank. The Republican raised $502,000 in the third quarter to Killin’s more than $1 million since she joined the race in July.

Crank, who won the open seat by nearly 14 percentage points in 2024, has reported raising about $1.16 million total this cycle. The other Democrats in the race have raised less than $100,000.

Incumbents hold a distinct edge elsewhere

In Colorado’s five other congressional districts, the incumbents hold strong advantages more than a year out from the election — if they’re drawing challengers at all.

Western Slope Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents Boebert’s old district, has raised $1.9 million this election cycle — nearly three times as much as Democratic challenger Alex Kelloff’s $680,000 and more than 10 times the $169,000 that Republican candidate Hope Scheppelman has brought in.

Denver-based U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat, has raised nearly four times the totals of her Democratic primary challengers, drawing $484,000 to Melat Kiros’ $125,000 and Wanda James’ $101,000. Kiros announced for the office on June 30, while James launched her campaign on Sept. 16.

Democratic Reps. Jason Crow, Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen have not drawn any challengers who reported raising any money.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who is running his first reelection campaign next year, reported raising $1.7 million in the third quarter — more than 10 times what any challenger reported.

He has more than $3.6 million in cash on hand. Republicans Janak Joshi and George Washington Markert reported total fundraising just shy of $150,000 and $120,000, respectively. Hickenlooper’s Democratic primary challenger Karen Breslin, meanwhile, reported total fundraising of $65,000.

H.R. 1, known as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” will reduce the number of people covered by Medicaid by adding work requirements and making enrollees prove their eligibility more frequently. It will also limit states’ ability to expand the services their Medicaid programs pay for, starting in 2027.

The number of uninsured people in Colorado and across the nation will likely start to rise before then. Higher subsidies to buy insurance on the individual marketplace, put in place during the pandemic, will expire Dec. 31.

In a this week, Gov. Jared Polis estimated premiums for people who previously received the subsidies will double across the state and quadruple in parts of the Western Slope and Eastern Plains.

“Colorado has done everything we can at the state level to blunt the damage of H.R.1 and the loss of the tax credit, but only Congress can stop these massive premium increases and the resulting loss of coverage for hundreds of thousands of hard-working Coloradans and their families,” said the letter, which Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera also signed.

The state’s delegation split along party lines on H.R. 1, with all Republicans supporting President Donald Trump’s signature piece of legislation and all Democrats in opposition.

Congress faces a busy month. If it doesn’t pass a spending bill, or more likely, a short-term extension of current spending, . The need to avoid a shutdown could make it difficult for lawmakers to pass any other bills, or create an opportunity for anyone who can fold their bills into must-pass legislation.

While Republicans have majorities in both chambers, they need votes from Democrats to get a spending bill through the Senate, giving the minority party some leverage to include its own priorities. Republicans can’t concede too much, however, without losing votes from their more fiscally conservative wing.

Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents the 3rd Congressional District on the Western Slope, is one of a group of 10 Republicans sponsoring a bill to extend the expiring subsidies to purchase coverage on the individual marketplace for one more year.

The backers called for a “sustainable” plan to end the subsidies without raising costs for customers, but didn’t offer any details about how they would do so.

A spokesman for Hurd, who declined to be identified, said the group is looking to pass the bill as quickly as possible to avert an increase in rates and give lawmakers space to come up with a longer-term plan. Ideas include gradually reducing the subsidies over time, or pairing any further extension with efforts to bring down the overall cost of health insurance, he said.

Rep. Brittany Pettersen, who represents the 7th Congressional District in the western Front Range and eastern mountain region, said Democrats would prefer to make the enhanced subsidies permanent, rather than create uncertainty about whether Congress will extend them every year.

Still, a short-term extension is better than nothing, she said.

A one-year extension would mean that any increase in costs would . An analysis from August found that if subsidies expire at the end of the year, premiums could go up by a median of 18% nationwide, meaning half would rise by less, and half by more.

The previous year’s median increase was 7%, .

Democrats are trying to chip away at what they consider some of the worst policies in H.R. 1, Pettersen said.

She plans to announce a bill that would repeal language requiring that any Medicaid “waivers” be immediately budget-neutral. Currently, states can add benefits to their Medicaid programs if they show budget neutrality or savings over the long run, she said.

For example, Colorado’s waiver allows the state to pay for inpatient care for mental illnesses and addictions, which Medicaid doesn’t typically cover, Pettersen said. Sixteen other states have the same ability to cover inpatient mental health care, and 37 cover inpatient addiction treatment.

Providing that care can look expensive in the short term, but it saves lives, as well as money, when people enter recovery and stop cycling through emergency rooms, she said.

“We have a long way to go to start picking apart the most harmful provisions,” she said.

collected just over 25,000 signatures between the end of March and the Aug. 27 deadline to turn in petitions — about a fifth of the 124,238 the minimum required to on the 2026 ballot.

More than 400 volunteers gathered signatures, but the group did not raise enough money to hire paid petition circulators and so could not collect the required number, said Patrick Davis, a political consultant in Colorado Springs who worked on the campaign. The group raised $38,897 through July 15 but needed about $1 million to pay for the circulators, he said.

The group will decide this month whether it will try again, this time with more collaboration with livestock and hunting groups that could help bolster fundraising, Davis said.

“They’re not going to stop bringing wolves and, overnight, they’re not going to fix their management program,” he said of state wildlife officials. “So I feel like we still need to fix this program.”

The failed ballot initiative was the latest in a string of attempts to end or pause the wolf reintroduction, which the state’s ranching groups have staunchly opposed. Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners in January rejected a petition to pause the reintroduction. In August, an attempt by state lawmakers to ban CPW from using state money for this winter’s next planned releases was neutered amid opposition from the governor’s office.

For wolf advocates, the continued defeat of challenges to the program reflects the fact that the majority of Coloradans still support the reintroduction.

“You could quote that old cliche, three strikes and you’re out,” said Jim Pribyl, a former chair of the Parks and Wildlife Commission and the chair of Colorado Nature Action, a coalition of conservation organizations.

A poll set for release Monday shows a slim majority of Coloradans continue to support wolf reintroduction, despite staunch opposition in rural Colorado. The poll, conducted by Magellan Strategies between July 30 and Aug. 12, showed 53% of 1,136 registered voters support the effort.

The poll found 27% of Colorado voters strongly support wolf reintroduction, while 26% somewhat support it. About 23% strongly oppose the program, and 14% somewhat oppose reintroduction, with the remaining 10% having no opinion.

Unaffiliated voters and Democrats made up the majority of the support, while 59% of Republicans opposed the reintroduction efforts. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Those findings mirror the original split on the 2020 ballot measure that mandated the reintroduction, along with polling released in January. Colorado voters in 2020 voted 51% to 49% to bring the gray wolf back to the state, with a majority of the support coming from the urban Front Range.

“It’s the will of the people,” Pribyl said. “Obviously, there’s been controversy. But people need to be mindful of the success story of the program.”

Twenty-one collared wolves currently roam Colorado and at least 10 pups were born this summer in the state’s four packs. Soon, Pribyl said, there will be enough wolves in the state to create a stable, self-sustaining population.

Now, Davis said, those who want to halt or hinder the wolf reintroduction must focus on the federal level.

“At the state level, all options have been exhausted,” he said.

All of Colorado’s .

U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Republican representing Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, has to ban the importation of wolves from Canada.

In January, CPW captured 15 wolves in Canada and released them in Colorado. It plans to return to the country for this winter’s reintroduction effort.

“I ask for whatever means necessary to address the situation, including seeing what the Interior (Department) might do to ban importation and to initiate a removal process,” said Hurd, who represents much of western Colorado, during .

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from the Eastern Plains’ 4th Congressional District — and formerly from the 3rd District — introduced a bill that would remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list and eliminate federal protections for the animal. The rest of Colorado’s Republican House delegation has signed on as co-sponsors.

, if passed, would have little impact on Colorado’s reintroduction program, however.

The species is protected as endangered under state law, too — and state wildlife officials already have the authority to manage wolves inside Colorado’s boundaries.