Less than a month before ballots start arriving in mailboxes , Marx this week reported having about $215,000 in the bank. Weiser, the state’s attorney general, reported about $827,000 in his campaign account.

In the most recent campaign fundraising filings, covering July 28 through Sept. 2 and due Tuesday, Weiser reported raising almost $687,000. Marx raised almost $625,000.

But Weiser spent less than half of his haul — about $229,000 — and much of that was on payroll. Marx, meanwhile, spent almost 90% of his new fundraising, or more than $551,000. More than half of the total — almost $335,000 — went to a direct-mail fundraising company.

Both major-party candidates also have independent expenditure committees supporting them, and those can spend and raise unlimited funds, albeit without any coordination with the candidates’ campaigns. Both operations appear to have gone largely dark following the June 30 primary election. Freedom IEC, the group backing Marx, reported spending about $29,000, with about $28,000 raised, over the past month. Fighting For Colorado, the group backing Weiser, reported spending about $124 and raising just over $3,000.

Labor Day historically marks the start of the sprint toward Election Day, with heavy spending expected in October to sway voters who haven’t made up their minds or cast their ballots yet. Election Day is Nov. 3.

Colorado clerks will begin mailing ballots to voters Oct. 2. Weiser is the heavy favorite to succeed term-limited Gov. Jared Polis, with Colorado voters choosing only one Republican governor in the past 50 years and the state trending steadily blue over the past decade.

Marx, a first-time candidate who’s a former nonprofit ministry leader, emerged from a bruising primary campaign that came down to only a few thousand votes over state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer — and ended with both of his GOP rivals saying they would not support him in the general election.

Marx’s candidacy has also been marred by ongoing questions about his biography and fundraising practices. On Aug. 31, the secretary of state’s office announced it was seeking against the Marx campaign for allegedly accepting donations over the state limit and “aggravating factors.”

A is slated to begin Thursday.

Among other candidates, Greg Lopez, a former short-term Republican member of Congress now seeking the governorship as an unaffiliated candidate, reported ending the latest campaign filing period with less than $18,000 on hand. He raised less than $17,000 during the period.

Other Colorado races

Here is how much money major-party candidates raised in other state races July 28 through Sept. 2, and how much they had on hand at the end of the reporting period:

Attorney General

• Michael Allen (Republican): raised $97,812.61, reported $62,506.59 on hand.
• Jena Griswold (Democrat): raised $241,521, reported $292,067.19 on hand.

Secretary of State

• Amanda Gonzalez (Democrat): raised $64,721.82, reported $84,499.32 on hand.
• James Wiley (Republican): raised $13,516.32, reported a debt of $4,305.11.

Treasurer

• Kevin Grantham (Republican): raised $9,231, reported $59,612.22 on hand.
• Jeff Bridges (Democrat): raised $13,101, reported $228,880.89 on hand.

In state legislative races, party political action committees that aim to expand or reduce Democrats’ majorities also reported recent fundraising and spending:

Colorado House of Representatives

• Colorado Way Forward (PAC supporting Democrats): raised $226,750, spent $38,583.18. Reported $1,179,792.08 total raised this cycle.
• New Day Colorado (PAC supporting Republicans): raised $112,505, spent $87,784.40. Reported $1,260,601.19 total raised this cycle.

State Senate

• All Together Colorado (PAC supporting Democrats): raised $217,575, spent $72,730.85. Reported $1,678,887.09 total raised this cycle.
• Senate Majority Fund (PAC supporting Republicans): raised $434,200, spent $189,419.75. Reported $1,928,319.11 total raised this cycle.

The change, if approved, would upend a decades-old standard. Instead of closing roads and trails to motorized traffic unless otherwise noted, the new rule would open them to all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes and other machinery by default, unless they’re explicitly closed to such traffic.

The  would also eliminate a standard that requires federal land managers to minimize environmental harm and conflict between users when deciding whether to open a trail or road to motorized vehicles.

The rule is the framework Forest Service officials use when deciding which roads and trails should be open to motorized travel. The Forest Service is the , where it oversees 11.3 million acres of land crisscrossed by thousands of miles of roads and trails. The land managed by the agency in Colorado spans more than 17,600 square miles — larger than the states of Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

“Travel management sounds anodyne and wonky, but in many ways it’s how visitors are going to experience their national forests,” said Dan Hartinger, the senior director of policy advocacy for The Wilderness Society.

about the proposed changes made public last month. But people who use motorized vehicles on public lands say the change could rebalance a planning process that tilted against them.

The change to the travel rule follows several other major policy shifts for the 200 million acres managed nationally by the Forest Service. Most notably, the agency is pursuing a repeal of its roadless rule, which banned logging and the construction of roads in vast swaths of wilderness, though the proposed rescission would not affect Colorado.

Forest Service leaders framed the changes to the travel rule as needed deregulation and an effort to increase access to public lands. The proposed change would make the travel-planning process “less burdensome, more efficient and timelier, and more responsive to recreational and other access needs on forests and grasslands across the country,” according to the notice published by the agency.

“The Forest Service administers more than 380,000 miles of road, exceeding the length of the U.S. Interstate Highway System by nearly eight times, and 165,000 miles of trails,” Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said in . “This action provides the legal foundation to streamline and modernize the Travel Management Rule and align Forest Service policy with administration priorities to increase access and protect private and commercial interests, while conserving natural resources.”

The proposed rule would also open the door to using motorized vehicles off trails and roads to retrieve hunted game animals, collect firewood and camp. In addition, the notice proposes categorizing e-bikes as nonmotorized travel, which could allow them to be used on trails that allow non-electric bikes.

‘A free-for-all for trails and roads’

Conservation groups opposed to the proposed changes to the 2005 travel rule cited concerns that increasing motorized access would harm wildlife and ecosystems. It could also create conflict between motorized users and those who seek quieter experiences in nature.

“There will essentially be a free-for-all for trails and roads and anything that looks like a trail or road on Forest Service land,” said Tom Delehanty, a senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain office.

There’s a tipping point at which road density begins to impact wildlife reproduction rates, especially in large mammals like elk, mule deer and bears, Hartinger said. An increasing number of studies also connect increased noise to negative wildlife outcomes, he said.

Increased motorized use could also increase wildfire risk, Delehanty said. More than half of wildfires in the western U.S. are ignited by people, . Increased access raises the risk, Delehanty said.

The proposed change would not apply to wilderness areas, Hartinger said, like the popular in the Front Range and the iconic near Aspen. While are protected from motorized travel by law, the broader Forest Service land that surrounds them would become more open to motorized use.

Increased motorized access on trails and roads that lead to wilderness areas could result in more driving in the areas, whether those drivers are breaking the law intentionally or not, Hartinger said.

For Coloradans who use ATVs, dirt bikes and off-road vehicles on public lands, the proposed change is a welcome update.

“I think it����ap needed and overdue,” said Marcus Trusty, the founder and president of , a volunteer advocacy group working to keep trails open to motorized use. “What I anticipate is the new rule will make it more balanced.”

A paradigm shift welcomed by some

For years, if the off-roading community wanted to use a trail or road, it had to prove motorized travel would minimally impact an area.

The rule change would flip the burden of proof, Trusty said.

He challenged the concept of separating nonmotorized and motorized users of public lands. Most people use cars and trucks on Forest Service roads to access trailheads and rivers in national forests, he noted. While he loves off-roading, he also hikes, backpacks and climbs, he said.

“We don’t want unchecked, unfettered access and people destroying things on the national forest,” Trusty said. “We just want the opportunity for the public to enjoy places we like to go.”

It’s unclear how and when Forest Service officials will implement any changes on the ground if it amends the rule. The federal notice states that the rule change would guide future decisions “and would not itself change the legal status of any road, trail, airfield, trailhead, area, or other access route or point.”

But the notice also outlines a proposed new requirement that local Forest Service offices annually review trails and roads in their jurisdictions that may warrant consideration to open to motorized access.

It’s unclear how Forest Service offices — already understaffed and underfunded — will manage the additional work on top of an already massive backlog of trail and road maintenance work, Hartinger said.

“Coloradans have, in some ways, a lot of skin in the game because Colorado is home to two of the top 10 most-visited national forests in the country,” Hartinger said, referencing the White River National Forest and the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests.

The Forest Service is accepting public comment on the proposed rule change through Sept. 23. People can submit comments .

The agency intends to publish its preliminary analysis of the environmental impact of the rule change next spring and make a final decision in early 2028.

But so far, the effort hasn’t been successful. And now the company, EarnIn, is facing a lawsuit filed by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office under the same laws it was lobbying to change.

The lawsuit, filed Aug. 27 against EarnIn, is the first of its kind in Colorado. It accuses the company of violating state law by charging effective interest rates for pay advances that were, on average, 10 times higher than those allowed for payday loans.

Lawyers from the attorney general’s office allege that EarnIn used deceptive practices to rake in tips. They contend that its “earned-wage access” products — which, in exchange for a fee, provide instant, small-dollar payments to customers — should be treated like loans.

If the lawsuit succeeds, it would refute the claims by the industry, and some lawmakers, that the payments aren’t a loan but a new type of financial product that needs its own bespoke regulations. The industry spent more than $500,000 on lobbying in recent years in Colorado, alongside thousands more in campaign donations, as it backed efforts to create that proposed oversight framework.

In a statement, Attorney General Phil Weiser said the California-based EarnIn had acted “as a third-party lender and charged illegally high rates, used deceptive design strategies to extract some charges, and trapped consumers in repeat borrowing.”

The lawsuit targets one type of earned-wage access product, which is directly marketed to consumers and is accessible through smartphone apps. Customers receive payments as an “advance” on their wages, usually in small dollar amounts that are then repaid automatically to the company — typically when customers’ paychecks hit their bank account. The suit does not challenge a similar product that’s offered directly through employers.

Between January 2023 and July 2025, EarnIn loaned roughly $300 million to Colorado consumers and collected more than $16 million in combined tips and fees for “lightning speed” transfers, the attorney general’s office wrote. (EWA companies also often offer free transfers that are delivered a few days later.)

When weighing those fees as interest, the lawsuit alleges, the loans carried an average annual interest rate of 388%, far . A $3.50 fee for a $50 advance, for instance, translates to an annual interest rate of 365%.

Many of EarnIn’s loans went to repeat customers: Fewer than 57,000 Coloradans took out more than 3.1 million loans between early 2023 and summer 2025, the suit alleges. The filing also describes three customers who each took out hundreds of loans and paid thousands of dollars in fees during that period, with the fees amounting to average annual interest rates that ranged from 1,421% to more than 2,200%.

In a statement Wednesday, David Durant, EarnIn’s general counsel and chief legal and regulatory officer, said the company “firmly disagreed” with the lawsuit’s allegations. He said the lawsuit “seeks to take away a financial tool that nearly 200,000 Coloradans have relied on, while protecting the overdraft fees and late payment penalties Coloradans turn to when they can’t wait for payday.”

“EarnIn’s Cash Out product is not a loan. Our customers access a portion of the pay they’ve already earned, with no obligation to repay, no interest, no mandatory fees, and no advance on future earnings,” Durant wrote.

Growing legal challenges, new laws

Colorado’s lawsuit joins a growing list of legal challenges to the earned-wage access industry. Attorneys general in , and , have filed similar lawsuits in recent years, as have .

As that legal opposition has mounted, state legislatures have debated — — laws that carve earned-wage access services out of existing loan regulations. The EWA companies argue, as Durant did, that what they offer isn’t a loan at all and should be regulated using specifically crafted rules.

Critics have countered that the products are just a modern spin on payday lending and should be treated as such.

While a consumer can technically avoid repaying the loan without penalty, EarnIn has direct access to a customer’s bank account to secure repayment; that access can be difficult to revoke, the state’s lawsuit alleges. As with other EWA companies, a customer cannot use the app again until they’ve repaid the service.

Ninety-two percent of customers either paid a fee or left a tip — which, the suit alleges, were intentionally crafted to be difficult to avoid. In one case, it took 13 clicks to reduce a suggested $11 tip to $0, the AG’s office wrote. When factoring in tips and fees, customers repaid 99.23% of the money owed to EarnIn, according to the lawsuit.

In its bid to set its own regulatory framework, the industry has that would’ve required EWA companies to receive licensure before operating in the state. The latest bill, in 2026, would have applied both to direct-to-consumer products and to those provided through employers, and it would have effectively exempted EWA services from the more stringent requirements levied against payday lenders.

As a result, the measure also would have made moot much of the state’s forthcoming lawsuit against the company, said Andrea Kuwik of the Bell Policy Center, which opposed the legislation.

Indeed, EarnIn knew that the attorney general was investigating it as the company and others like it lobbied lawmakers, the lawsuit indicates. In January 2025, shortly before lawmakers first debated an EWA bill, Weiser’s office agreed to hold off on suing EarnIn, legal filings show.

Durant, the company’s general counsel, said that EarnIn had worked for a year with Weiser’s office and that the office “preferred a legislative solution.”

“The legislation we backed last session would have licensed EWA providers, put them under state supervision, and capped what providers can charge,” Durant wrote. “Supporting more oversight of our own product is the opposite of trying to avoid it, and it’s the same position we’ve taken in states across the country.”

Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for the AG’s office, said that the prior agreement not to sue EarnIn was unrelated to the legislative debate.

$500,000 spent on lobbying

Amid that debate, EarnIn and four other companies spent more than $500,000 on lobbying in Colorado in the past two years. EarnIn also donated $7,500 to outside spending committees backing Republican and Democratic candidates in late 2025 and early 2026, part of more than $41,000 in donations from four of the companies to spending committees supporting candidates from both parties and to lawmakers who sponsored the legislation.

All of that money was donated starting in late 2024, weeks before lawmakers first debated the industry’s regulations.

The companies’ lobbying did not pay off. In a repeat of the 2025 debate, this year’s bill cleared an initial committee vote only to die before reaching the House floor.

Rep. Sean Camacho, a primary sponsor of the EWA bills, said he was aware the attorney general’s office was “looking into certain companies for certain practices” ahead of the legislative debate earlier this year. That’s why “we wanted to run this bill, because we wanted to make sure best practices” were enshrined in state law, he said.

“What we were trying to do is protect working people by having a comprehensive framework in which EWA operates,” Camacho, a Denver Democrat, said. “We understand people need access to capital and traditional lending sources. This is a new thing in the marketplace, and from our view, it was unregulated and needed some work.”

But consumer-protection groups, which opposed the legislation, had long maintained that direct-to-consumer EWA services could always be regulated under existing rules.

The lawsuit affirmed that the companies have “really predatory, deceptive practices that should be following Colorado’s payday consumer protections,” said Kuwik, Bell’s policy and research director.

She said the legislature may need to set specific rules for employer-integrated EWA products, meaning those pay advances that are offered as part of an employer’s benefits package. But she said the state’s lawsuit made clear that direct-to-consumer advances, like EarnIn’s, should be treated like payday loans.

“The suit that they brought … just has all of (that) specific information about EarnIn that, again, just really validates everything that we’ve been saying,” Kuwik continued.

The lawsuit seeks a ruling that would prohibit EarnIn from violating state lending laws, and it also seeks refunds for excess charges and other penalties and fees.

The ruling, which came fewer than 24 hours after a Thursday hearing, means that Sean Vadney will appear as the Libertarian candidate on the Nov. 3 ballot. The party had moved quickly to install Vadney last weekend after Alex Astley, who won the party’s primary in June, withdrew.

But because Astley quit one day after the state deadline for minor party candidates to withdraw and still be replaced, Vadney’s placement on the ballot was initially blocked by Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office, requiring first a lawsuit and then an order from Denver District Court Judge Adam Espinosa. His ruling came the same day state officials were due to certify the ballot.

Nicholas Sarwark, Vadney’s attorney, argued Thursday that the party had done all it could to comply with the state’s deadlines, given the late notice of Astley’s departure from the race.

He and other party officials also said they were suspicious of that timing, which — they said — suggested that Astley had intentionally dropped out to boost the campaign of James Wiley, a former Libertarian official who is now running for secretary of state as a Republican. A press release purportedly from Wiley, which was , claimed that Astley was “encouraged” to withdraw after Wiley signed a “liberty pledge.”

“You tell me,” Sarwark said, “that this wasn’t” collusion between the candidates.

Under the Libertarians’ previous leadership, which included Wiley, to keep Libertarian candidates out of contested races, so long as the Republican candidate was “liberty-leaning.”

But when Wiley’s faction was ousted from leadership roles last year, the party backed away from its deal with the GOP and pledged to again run candidates up and down the ballot.

In an interview Thursday, Astley denied that he had dropped out to help Wiley or that he had timed his departure to block the party from replacing him.

He instead cited his own busy schedule, low Libertarian voter participation and poor financial support as the primary reasons for his decision to suspend his campaign. He said the timing — coming one day after the withdrawal deadline — was “incidental,” and he said he’d explained his reasons to the party .

“I made my decision absent of any communication with James Wiley or desire of James Wiley,” he said. But he said he learned of the liberty pledges after he’d decided to drop out and wasn’t opposed to them as part of considering how he could “best further the cause of liberty … after I recognized that I needed to suspend my campaign.”

Astley said he was not involved in creating Wiley’s apparent news release but added that its content was “approximately accurate.” He said he believed it was a draft that was released prematurely. In a follow-up email, he said he believed that Wiley was better equipped to win in November and that he was in negotiations with Wiley for an endorsement. 

In texts to The Denver Post, Wiley said the press release was leaked prematurely by his campaign staff and had “some errors.” He did not respond when asked about what specifically was erroneous in the release.

Sarwark and Joe Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s campaign director, said they did not believe that Astley’s timing was a coincidence. Johnson said that amid simmering internal conflict between the party’s new and prior leadership, he and others suspected there were attempts to clear Libertarian candidates from races.

“I can’t tell you what he’s thinking. I can’t tell you what’s in his heart,” Johnson said of Astley. “But usually, if it walks like a duck, flies like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably not a pigeon.”

Sarwark and Johnson said the party had prepared to take quick steps to replace candidates if any dropped out suddenly.

Astley, an engineer from Holyoke, won the June 30 primary with nearly 62% of the vote. Vadney, who’s in his mid-20s, is an entertainer and music DJ from Highlands Ranch. He served three years on probation after a 2021 incident for which he pleaded guilty to third-degree assault of a police officer and criminal mischief. He told The Post earlier this year that the arrest was connected to a mental health breakdown and alcohol abuse, and he said he no longer drinks alcohol. He did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story.

He and Wiley will face a handful of other candidates, including Democratic nominee Amanda Gonzalez, the Jefferson County clerk and recorder. Griswold, who’s term-limited, is running for attorney general.

The legal filing to put Vadney on the ballot was only technically opposed by lawyers for the state. They told Espinosa that they had to follow the statute — which blocked Vadney because of the missed deadline — but said placing him on the ballot wouldn’t be difficult for state election officials.

The attorney general’s office also believed that Vadney and the Libertarian Party had “substantially complied” with election rules, despite Astley’s belated departure from the race.

Voters from both parties in the Republican’s 8th Congressional District overwhelmingly favor a lighter touch than the raids and mass roundups used in President Donald Trump’s second term, according to poll results released Wednesday by the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

Colorado’s 8th District, which takes in parts of Weld, Larimer and Adams counties north of Denver, has among the state’s eight congressional districts. Both Evans and his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, are Latino.

“There is tremendous common ground to build on to create legislative proposals (on immigration),” said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation, which conducted the poll. “There is an overarching sense that action must be taken.”

Still, bipartisan agreement on immigration reform has eluded Congress for years.

The survey, which Kull addressed for reporters on Wednesday in an online briefing, found voters on the right and left largely agree on a number of immigration-related questions both nationally and across more than two dozen battleground House districts. That’s true whether it’s about creating pathways to citizenship for people brought to the United States illegally as children or about requiring employers to verify a worker’s immigration status before hiring them.

The findings come from the latest release of a poll that included 500 voters in the 8th District in May and June. Earlier releases have addressed their views on several other issues, including the regulation of artificial intelligence and the government’s role in healthcare.

When it comes to immigration, Democrats are intent on pinning some of the uglier sides of enforcement under Trump to Republican incumbents in hopes of taking control of the closely divided House chamber in January. Rutinel has made criticism of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sometimes-harsh enforcement tactics a central theme of his campaign.

Evans has tried to create daylight between himself and the administration on the issue, highlighting his decision last year to join five other congressional Republicans in penning a letter to ICE leadership about its enforcement strategies, and asking whether the agency was prioritizing the deportation of criminals.

Erin Covey, the U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report, said getting out from under Trump’s shadow will be a tall order for Evans. The 8th District, she said, ranks second in the nation in Latino population for a battleground district currently led by a Republican.

Cook .

“I think Trump is an anchor on Evans in a way he isn’t on other Republicans in other competitive districts,” she said. “Latino voters are going to be a crucial part of either candidate’s fortunes.”

In Colorado’s 8th District, 66% of Republican or GOP-leaning voters and 87% of Democrats or those leaning left said they favored a long-term visa for immigrants who have been in the country for a while and who have committed no crime.

An even higher share of Republican voters and leaners — 77% — said children brought to the United States illegally as children should be provided a path to citizenship, provided they have not committed a significant crime and are employed, in college or serving in the military. Democrats and left-leaners registered an 88% approval of that question, according to the poll.

A dual question asked whether employers should be required to use E-Verify to ensure workers they hire are in the country legally and if more work visas should be issued, provided there’s a demand for workers. Both Democratice- and Republican-leaning voters responded overwhelmingly in the affirmative: 87% for Democrats and 85% for Republicans.

A majority of voters on both sides, according to the poll results, said more judges should be hired to adjudicate asylum cases. Sixty-six percent of Republicans were in favor while 83% of Democrats said yes.

The one question on which 8th District Republicans lined up nearly perfectly with the Trump administration was the need to deport those in the country illegally who had committed a crime. Ninety-eight percent of GOP-affiliated voters supported that policy, while 74% of Democrat-leaning respondents in the district did.

The University of Maryland survey came out just days after a Colorado Latino Policy Agenda poll revealed that 66% of Latino voters statewide said they felt the country was on the wrong track as their frustrations about the cost of living — which ranked higher than any other issue, including immigration — had gone unaddressed and, for many, had worsened.

For Evans, the dissatisfaction among Latino voters poses a potential hurdle to reelection. Only 34% of voting Latinos in his district regarded him favorably, while 42% viewed him unfavorably, according to that poll, which was conducted between July 1 and Aug. 11.

The incident came to light in early August, when , 26, revealed his arrest in a .

“The night didn’t end the way either of us planned,” Schilder said in the video. “We were both arrested for public intoxication, and I own that completely. … You deserve honesty from anyone asking for your vote.”

Schilder is running to replace Republican incumbent Rep. Brandi Bradley in Colorado House District 39, which covers rural and suburban parts of Douglas County. His has largely focused on making Colorado more affordable.

The Colorado candidate said he was visiting Texas to celebrate his younger brother’s graduation from Texas A&M, Schilder’s alma mater, when they were both arrested by College Station police.

Schilder was arrested on May 8 on suspicion of public intoxication and resisting arrest, according to . The county attorney refused the resisting arrest charge, Schilder said.

The Brazos County Attorney’s Office declined to verify that information to The Denver Post on Wednesday. College Station Police Department officials .

Schilder pleaded no contest to the public intoxication charge and received a deferred sentence, according to a spokesperson for the College Station Municipal Court.

“I made a mistake that night, and I have owned it completely and publicly before anyone asked me to,” Schilder said in a statement emailed to The Denver Post. “As for how it reflects on my campaign, I will let Douglas County decide that.”

This is a developing story and may be updated.

Latino voters in the state have consistently said they feel the country is going in the wrong direction, and they reiterated that dissatisfaction in a poll released Tuesday by the Colorado Latino Policy Agenda. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they felt the country was on the wrong track as their frustrations about the cost of living — which ranked higher than any other issue, including immigration — had gone unaddressed and, for many, had worsened.

Against that national critique, the annual poll has repeatedly found that Latino voters still hold a positive view of their own state. But that grace appears to have been exhausted: Forty-six percent of respondents this year said the state was moving in the wrong direction, against 40% who said the opposite.

That’s a stunning 26-percentage-point swing from the same poll last year. It’s also the first time in the poll’s six-year history that it has found an overall disapproval for Colorado’s direction among Latino voters.

“The main thing is the economy,” said Gabriel Sanchez, the pollster for BSP Research who conducted the survey. “Poll after poll, Latinos are telling us loudly: ‘Address the economy. We can’t afford housing. We can’t afford groceries. We can’t afford gas.’

“We’ve seen consistently in the poll that anger and frustration was largely at the federal government. Now, what we’re seeing is that frustration pointing toward government, period. And that’s because people are saying, ‘Look, every year things are getting worse. Somebody fix it.’ ”

The poll was conducted between July 1 and Aug. 11 in partnership with the advocacy groups Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, or COLOR, and Voces Unidas. It included 1,606 registered Latino voters and has a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

The respondents were also critical of who influences their government, saying that wealthy donors, corporate business groups, political consultants and outside PACs, and oil and gas companies wielded too much influence in the state. Eighty-one percent said they were concerned that campaign contributions from wealthy outside groups limited policies that could address the affordability crisis.

Asked to rank what federal and state policymakers should focus on, the top responses included the cost of living and healthcare, increasing wages, and building more affordable and attainable housing. Forty-three percent of respondents said their financial situation had worsened in the past year, compared to 22% who said their situation had improved.

More than half of voters who said their situation has worsened blamed Trump. (Ten percent also blamed billionaires and corporations, the second-highest response.)

Latino voters’ dissatisfaction with Colorado’s direction did not extend to the Democratic officials leading its government. U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, Gov. Jared Polis, Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Attorney General Phil Weiser all had double-digit net approval ratings, with positive appraisals exceeding negative ones significantly.

Respondents also approved of Republican U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd and their Democratic colleagues, U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, Brittany Pettersen, Jason Crow and Joe Neguse.

Freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, whose 8th Congressional District seat is among the most hotly contested in the country this fall, was less appreciated. Only 34% of voting Latinos in his district regarded him favorably, while 42% viewed him unfavorably. Respondents in CD8 disapproved of congressional Republicans by 22 percentage points, compared to views of congressional Democrats that were net-favorable by 6 points.

That’s notable given that Latinos make up more than 38% of the CD8 electorate, .

What’s more, 61% of voters in the district disapproved of Trump. Of those who said the country was going in the wrong direction or their financial situation had worsened, a majority of Latino CD8 voters blamed Trump more than anyone else for those problems.

But Latino voters in the district also had the lowest overall opinion of the direction of the state. With an unpopular president in a blue state, Evans has focused his campaign on opposing Democrats at home. But while they’re unhappy with the state, CD8 Latino voters simultaneously have strongly favorable views of Polis and Colorado state lawmakers.

While those concerns may spell trouble for Evans, the poll’s top-line takeaway about affordability is a call to action for government officials across the political spectrum, said Alex Sánchez, the president and CEO of Voces Unidas.

“The problem is the lack of action by those in power who can do something about it,” he said. “For the first time since we began this project, more Latinos believe Colorado is moving in the wrong direction than the right direction. That is concerning. State leaders should take that seriously.”

Sánchez said the affordability concerns were “being made worse by what’s happening in our streets, in our communities.” The survey found that 40% of respondents statewide knew someone who had been deported as Trump has pushed to increase immigration arrests and deportations.

To that end, significant majorities of the poll’s respondents opposed letting immigration agents arrest people directly from jails. They backed efforts to allow Coloradans to sue federal officials and opposed allowing the governor to “voluntarily” share immigrants’ information with the federal government, a nod to Polis’ repeated attempts to cooperate with ICE subpoenas.

But the respondents were not entirely progressive. Majorities also supported conservative-backed ballot measures related to penalties for fentanyl possession; trans athletes competing in high school and college sports; and gender-affirming surgeries for minors.

Initiative 195 would create a graduated income tax for the state under which higher earners pay a greater percentage of their income than lower earners, generating significantly more tax revenue. Colorado currently uses a flat tax system, where all taxpayers, regardless of income, pay 4.4% of their income in state taxes. For the ballot, the measure will be assigned an amendment number.

The measure was the last of more than a dozen proposed questions to be certified by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office after it determined the proponents had collected enough petition signatures. Voters will decide on 14 statewide questions total, in addition to the slew of state, federal and local elections that will make up the Nov. 3 ballot.

The graduated income tax proposal is likely to be one of the marquee ballot box battles heading into the fall.

If passed, the measure would keep the current tax rate for Coloradans making between $100,000 and $500,000 per year. It would raise the marginal income tax rate to 7.4% on income over $500,000 and less than $750,000; to 7.9% on income between $750,000 and $1 million; and to 8.4% on income over $1 million.

The tax rate for Coloradans making $25,000 per year or less would drop slightly to 3.7%, and the rate for Coloradans making between $25,000 and $100,000 per year would decrease to 4.2%.

expect the proposal would bring in nearly $2 billion more in revenue every year to the state, which this year has a general fund budget of more than $17 billion. That money would be earmarked for education, healthcare, and early childcare and preschool.

Medicaid, which would be included, has been a massive driver of the state’s recent fiscal crunches.

“Every Colorado student deserves a great public school and real pathways to opportunity, with great teachers who are paid and supported the way they deserve,” Lisa Weil, the executive director of Great Education Colorado, one of the key backers of the initiative, said in a statement. “Initiative 195 qualifying for the ballot means Coloradans will have the chance to vote their values and build a tax system where everyone pays their fair share and our neighborhood schools finally get what they need to do right by our kids.”

One of the other measures proposed for the ballot, Proposition 136, explicitly seeks to undercut the graduated income tax measure by setting a cap on the state income tax rate. Earlier it was designated as Initiative 232 during the petitioning phase.

If voters pass both, it could set up a potential legal battle over which takes precedence and becomes state law. Both measures would require more than 50% support to become law. The graduated income tax proposal, while a constitutional amendment, would only remove language from the constitution, and thus does not need to clear the 55% threshold for amendments.

“We’ve been prepared for this fight for months,” Michael Fields, the president of the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado, said in a statement. “That’s why we qualified Initiative 232 — the Income Tax Cap — for the ballot. An overwhelming number of Coloradans agree that the progressive tax hike is too high, too extreme, and will take good paying jobs away from working families and out of our state.

“The Tax Cap is the better answer for anyone who believes Colorado should be more affordable for everyone,” he added.

The other questions that made the statewide ballot would:

• for the possession or sale of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.
• mandate time in prison for .
• ban not aligned with their biological sex.
• ban for people younger than 18.
• require that law enforcement when an immigrant without proper legal status is charged with a violent crime.
• establish a right for cooking and heating.
• require that sales taxes on sporting goods be earmarked for conservation efforts.
• require additional verification when voters submit mail-in ballots, such as a driver’s license number or partial Social Security number.
• ban congressional redistricting outside the typical once-a-decade census cycle.
• create a constitutional right to hunt and fish.
• require that ballot questions be written at an 8th-grade reading level.
• allow the state to keep more tax money, typically returned under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights revenue cap, to put toward education. That measure was referred by the legislature.

Another measure, which would have made it a constitutional requirement to better fund the state’s roads, was pulled days before the deadline to do so after Attorney General Phil Weiser, lawmakers and the backers of the measure reached a deal to secure more money for roads in future years. Weiser is the Democratic nominee for governor.

All of the items are being renumbered as amendments or propositions now that they’ve been approved for the ballot, with the ballot titles still to come. The secretary of state must certify the ballot by Friday. That is also the deadline for groups backing ballot initiatives to withdraw their measures.

County clerks can start mailing out general election ballots on Oct. 2, about a month before the election.

Members of Congress, local leaders and statewide officials call the support critical for rebuilding after a pair of devastating fires tore through Colorado, with flooding not far behind the blazes. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has rallied support from across political lines to underscore the need for the declaration publicly, and U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Republican, is organizing a tour with other western lawmakers so he can recruit them to a lobbying effort aimed at winning Trump’s approval.

Hanging over the waiting period is that the Trump administration, breaking with recent history, has rejected similar aid requests from Colorado and other states that voted against his return to the White House.

Both the Aspen Acres and Gold Mountain wildfires burned through Hurd’s Western Slope district, which also covers much of southern Colorado. He said it was still too soon to read anything into the still-unanswered federal aid request — even as he keeps in mind that the administration denied the similar request for the 2025 Elk and Lee fires, also in Hurd’s district, including appeals earlier this year.

To win support for the disaster declaration, he said he was working through “as many channels as we can — both officially, through the press, and through sources the president and his team would see, but also behind the scenes.”

He lauded the bipartisan effort behind the public pressure campaign — and also highlighted that Pueblo County, which bore the brunt of the Aspen Acres fire, voted for Trump in 2024.

“This is a terrible disaster in a crucial part of the state,” Hurd said. “Families have been impacted by not only the wildfire, but the flooding. The scope and nature of this disaster is almost unprecedented in this part of the state, in this part of the country. I will say also, these are communities that are largely rural and support the president.”

This summer, the has burned more than 100,000 acres, or roughly 159 square miles, mostly in southwest Pueblo County. It is the seventh-largest wildfire in Colorado history. The has burned nearly 40,000 acres, or 62 square miles, mostly in Ouray County. Both are largely contained, but still active in a season that has seen many other fires in the state.

The fires have destroyed more than 800 structures and 324 homes, according to signed by all of Colorado’s members of Congress and both senators.

Polis declared each fire a disaster at the end of June, and since then the state has opened up nearly $266 million to help with fire suppression, recovery and response, according to his office.

State ‘has worked closely with FEMA,’ Polis says

Polis made the formal request for federal aid to the White House on Aug. 23, after state and local officials worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to document and validate eligible damage.

The next day, Polis’ office publicized quotes from nearly two dozen local leaders and homeowners calling on the White House to approve the declaration. 

“The State of Colorado has worked closely with FEMA to put this request together and ensure we are doing all we can to support the communities impacted,” Polis said in a statement as the request neared the one-week mark. “I’m grateful to Colorado’s entire congressional delegation for coming together in bipartisan support of our request. These rural communities have been through an incredibly difficult summer and I urge the President to approve Colorado’s request so that survivors can rebuild, repair, and recover from these catastrophic events.”

As of Monday afternoon, the White House still had not approved the declaration.

In an unattributed statement, a White House spokesperson said Trump responds to each request “with great care and consideration, ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”

That is the exact language the White House used when offering a statement on why it denied support for the Elk and Lee fires.

“The Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with State and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes, making response less urgent and recovery less prolonged,” the statement continued.

The disaster declaration would help the local governments in the affected areas rebuild infrastructure, including roads, water treatment plants and parks that were damaged or destroyed by the wildfires. Rural electric cooperatives would get help to rebuild destroyed power lines and transmission stations.

A declaration would also help homeowners rebuild property that was uninsured, either because insurers wouldn’t cover them or because they didn’t need coverage — as was the case with homes that weren’t in flood zones until the blazes remade local topography.

In recent months, Trump has increasingly politicized disaster relief. In July, he announced nearly $1 billion in aid to red states while praising candidates he backed in elections set at the same time, . Politico that Trump overrode regional approval to deny aid to New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. 

The administration has also admitted in court documents to canceling grant funding for blue states and not “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor,” . Colorado was among those states.

The Times that data showed a sharp spike in disaster funding denials for Democratic states in Trump’s current term compared to presidents of both parties going back to the start of the century — including Trump’s first term. The Times’ analysis showed Trump had denied 43% of disaster relief requests made by Democratic states in his second term, compared to 19% of requests made by Republican states.

Colorado was also targeted by administration officials in December as the president lashed out at Polis for the ongoing imprisonment of Tina Peters, the disgraced election official who was sentenced for election-related crimes. Polis later commuted her sentence.

While the White House has denied playing politics with disaster relief, it����ap a pattern officials — Republican and Democrat — have invoked.

“Politics should never determine who rebuilds after a natural disaster,” U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Americans count on their government to support their communities after disaster strikes. This administration’s shameful trend of denying disaster aid to Colorado, and other states the president wants to punish, shatters Americans’ trust in their government.

“We won’t stop fighting for Colorado communities and making sure politics stays out of disaster recovery.”

Republicans join push, hoping to add leverage

State Rep. Larry Don Suckla, a Cortez Republican whose district includes the Gold Mountain fire burn area, said he watched the smoke rise from his backyard.

Places like Lake City, in Hinsdale County, were particularly devastated, both from the fire itself and from a halt in the summer tourism the area relies on, he said. He signed on to Polis’ letter, and, in an interview, emphasized that rural Colorado — the part of the state that grows food and harvests timber — would benefit from the disaster declaration. 

“Maybe my party affiliation, and the party affiliation of (Rep. Stephanie Luck, a Republican whose district includes the Aspen Acres fire), will make a difference. I don’t know,” Suckla said. He added that he owed it to his constituents to use whatever leverage he could to secure federal help.

State Sen. Cleave Simpson, an Alamosa Republican and leader of his caucus, said he considered the prior denials in his decision to join Polis’ public push.

He urged officials to “please not make this political theater, or comedy, and recognize the impacts these disasters have had on people’s livelihoods.”

He also warns of “a sense of frustration and abandonment” if the declaration isn’t approved. 

“Folks in general are pretty resilient, and we’ll figure out a way to move forward,” Simpson said. “It might take longer, and more energy and more resources, and it takes away from other efforts. Something will suffer along the way, I suppose. But I’m sure it would be a sense of defeatism if the declaration isn’t made and declared, and support doesn’t follow.”

Meanwhile, people in the Aspen Acres and Gold Mountain burn areas will be left dealing with the aftermath. 

Ouray County Commissioner Michelle Nauer evacuated when the fire neared her neighborhood, and she had to listen as a nearby creek broke its banks and overflowed into neighbors’ homes in the following days — neighbors who didn’t live in a flood zone, and so they hadn’t needed to buy insurance to protect against that type of calamity. Flooding often acts as a double whammy following fires, after the blazes scour the earth of vegetation that has kept banks in place.

Her friends, neighbors and constituents lost homes and businesses. Nauer, who is unaffiliated with a party, says she’s “not putting a whole lot of hope” into the disaster declaration request, given recent history.

But that doesn’t mean her community doesn’t need it.

“The emotional and financial devastation to the community, it has been horrific to us. I don’t know how else to describe it,” Nauer said. “I don’t know what else I would say (to people deciding on disaster relief). Please? Of course, please.”

If approved, would also exempt that sales tax revenue from falling under the state’s spending cap set by , the mechanism that determines refunds to taxpayers. The measure could generate an estimated $175 million annually for programs that improve ecosystems, protect wildlife, mitigate wildfire damage and provide outdoor access, according to supporters of the proposition.

The measure would not increase taxes, raise prices or change the retail experience for consumers or businesses, said Tarn Udall, a senior attorney for , one of the conservation groups supporting the ballot measure. The proposition would apply to tax collected on the sale of products like tents, campers, skis, boats and fishing equipment.

During the petitioning phase, the state . The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office announced Aug. 21 that the petitioners submitted enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The proposition’s proponents said its passage could spur much-needed investment in the state’s natural resources. Many projects are ready to go but lack funding, they said.

“Colorado’s lands and water are foundational to our communities, economy, and way of life,” Robyn Paulekas, the executive director of Keep It Colorado, said in a statement. “We have a unique opportunity to make smart, long-term investments that conserve working lands, protect water resources, expand access to the outdoors, and reduce wildfire risk.”

Proposition 137 would dedicate the majority of the set-aside sales tax revenue to — the trust fund that allocates proceeds from the Colorado Lottery to conservation, outdoor recreation and wildlife projects — and to wildfire mitigation programs through and the Colorado State Forest Service.

Great Outdoors Colorado would receive about $83 million a year. The money could be used to designate new public lands and state parks, maintain trails and outdoor infrastructure, and restore ecosystems. If approved, the proposition would .

Wildfire prevention programs would also receive about $83 million, which they could use for prescribed burns, wildland firefighting training and to help local communities create wildfire response plans.

Wildfire prevention is significantly more cost-efficient than wildfire response and cleanup, said Jennifer Mueller, the CEO of , a Colorado nonprofit that works to prevent wildfires.

“The longer we wait, the larger of a problem this becomes,” Mueller said.

Smaller amounts — about $4.3 million each — would go to the state’s Outdoor Equity Grant Program to help people access the outdoors and to the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office to help create new jobs in the industry.

A broad swath of conservation and fire groups support the ballot measure, including American Rivers, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Conservation Colorado, San Luis Valley Great Outdoors and the Wilderness Society.

The committee supporting the bill — called — received most of its funding from large national nonprofits, including the Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land and . One of the heirs of the Walmart fortune and his wife, Tom and Olivia Walton, have also chipped in.