, which generally would prohibit the use of that technology to set individualized prices or wages, is part of a growing national focus on companies’ use of “surveillance pricing.” Companies, particularly tech firms, have gathered enormous amounts of personal data on American consumers, including down to the individual level.

Supporters of such legislation say that trend has opened the door for retailers, pharmacies, airlines and other industries to plug that data into algorithms and determine how much one person is willing to pay — and then adjust the price based on factors like potential customers’ location, race, income or level of desperation.

They want lawmakers to rein in the practice, amid broader concerns about data privacy and the ever-increasing cost of living.

“Corporations have long sought to set prices based on what consumers are willing to pay for a product,” said Lee Hepner, an antitrust lawyer with the American Economic Liberties Project, which supports surveillance-pricing regulation. “The effect of surveillance pricing makes that price-setting process much more efficient to exploit customers’ personal data, to predict how much an individual consumer is willing to pay.

“And it is ultimately a price-maximizing force, because that willingness to pay (translates to providing) the highest price, or the pain point price, for each individual consumer in the market.”

HB-1210, which is sponsored by Democratic lawmakers, already passed the state House on a 39-24 vote in late March. On Tuesday, it cleared its first committee hearing in the Senate. It now needs approval by the full Senate before it can move to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.

The technology is still emerging, and its uses vary. A TV station in Minnesota , vacuums and car seats were more expensive on Target’s app when a reporter was standing closer to the store than when they were farther away. Nearly 14 years ago, the Wall Street Journal higher prices for hotel bookings. By examining zip code-level data, ProPublica  were costlier in areas with more Asian residents.

Another study from last year, in which shoppers , found that prices shifted, from customer to customer, at the same Safeway or Target locations for products like eggs, cereal and peanut butter, according to the New York Times in a story last year.

And several federal lawmakers last year after its president told investors that the airline wanted to increase the use of artificial intelligence technology to influence prices. that it had never used nor plans to use a “fare product … that targets customers with individualized offers based on personal information or otherwise.”

The system can work in the other direction, too, with the technology used to set wages based on workers’ individual data.

More Perfect Union, a left-leaning news outlet, for Lyft and Uber to sit in a room and compare the rates they were offered for the same rides. Those rates differed more often than not.

Business groups and companies argue that price surveillance allows them to adjust prices up and down depending on demand and need, and that it can help drive specialized discounts to consumers. In , the Federal Trade Commission wrote that the technology could be used for “tailored offers to customers.”

But, the report continued, it could also increase prices — or it could be used to offer fewer discounts to individuals who just got paid.

To regulate the practice, lawmakers in several states and in Congress have introduced legislation curbing price surveillance. Colorado’s bill would generally prohibit price surveillance, though the bill includes exemptions for government agencies and when prices shift based on factors like delivery time.

If passed, the bill would be the strongest legislation of its kind in the United States, Hepner said.

Colorado lawmakers weighed similar legislation last year but then shelved it. In both 2024 and 2025, Democrats another type of algorithm that’s used to set rents for apartments and other rental properties. That legislation passed in 2025, only to be vetoed by Polis.

The governor does not appear to have much more interest in a broader effort to curtail surveillance pricing. Polis, who has been skeptical of lawmakers’ past efforts to regulate tech companies, signaled his concerns with the new bill through a spokeswoman Tuesday night.

“Governor Polis is concerned with policies, including price fixing and restrictions on demand-informed pricing, that further interfere with the free functioning of markets,” spokeswoman Ally Sullivan said in a statement. “The governor will review the final legislation if it reaches his desk.”

A swath of business and technology groups oppose the bill. Representatives of those interests testified Tuesday that the legislation was too broad and burdensome.

The groups — including those representing Colorado businesses, national retailers and the tech industry — also repeatedly said that the bill would hamper their ability to offer discounts to customers on an individualized basis.

“Unfortunately, the results of this bill would mean fewer discounts, fewer offers and high costs for consumers,” said Andrew Wood, a regional representative for TechNet, a coalition of major technology companies. In a question that reflects opponents’ public criticism of the bill, the Chamber of Progress, another tech group, showing that 70% of Coloradans opposed the banning of loyalty programs.

Hepner argued that the bill would preserve longstanding discount practices, like publicly available coupons, loyalty programs, and senior or veteran discounts. His group , which found that 78% of likely Colorado voters would support a ban on “companies from using AI or automated systems to charge different prices to different people, or pay different wages to different workers, based on ‘surveillance data.’ ”

Sen. Mike Weissman, one of the Democrats sponsoring HB-1210, said during the hearing that attempts at regulating the practice have been “watered down” in other states.

“I would submit it’s been killed or watered down in rooms like this, by testimony like some of what we heard today — respectfully, not a lot of which was strictly accurate to the bill. We don’t have to be that room, we don’t have to be that legislature, we don’t have to follow suit. We can do something different.”

The bill is next set for the first of two full votes on the Senate floor. That vote has not yet been scheduled. The legislative session ends May 13.

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.

Kirkmeyer, of Brighton, will face off against state Rep. Scott Bottoms and political newcomer Victor Marx in the June 30 Republican primary. Bottoms and Marx, both pastors who live in Colorado Springs, qualified for the ballot through the GOP state assembly on Saturday.

Bottoms, who led a wide assembly field and won support from 45% of attendees, will get the top spot in the race.

Kirkmeyer took the petition route to the ballot. She submitted more than 15,000 valid signatures, including more than 1,500 from each of Colorado’s eight congressional districts, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, which certified the signatures.

“This campaign has been built by thousands of real people, in real communities, all across Colorado,” Kirkmeyer said in a statement about her ballot qualification. “I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to sign our petition, share our message, and be part of something bigger. This is your campaign.”

The Democratic slate was mostly set at the end of March with that party’s state assembly. Attorney General Phil Weiser, who won support from more than 90% of that event����ap voting members, will face U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who petitioned onto the primary ballot.

Also on Wednesday, the Secretary of State’s office certified University of Colorado Regent Wanda James’s spot in a primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat. Melat Kiros, a Denver lawyer who stunned DeGette by outpolling her during the county assembly in March, has also qualified for that primary race. Republicans have nominated Christy Peterson, who is unopposed.

Earlier in the week, the Secretary of State’s Office certified Hetal Doshi and Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty for the Democratic primary ballot for attorney general. They will face Secretary of State Jena Griswold and attorney David Seligman in that party’s nominating contest.

Democratic and Republican primary ballots

Here are the candidates who qualified for the major-party ballots in the June 30 primary in statewide races. Voters affiliated with a party will receive its ballot in the mail in June. Unaffiliated voters can participate in primaries and will receive both parties’ ballots in the mail, but they can return only one of them.

The four state offices are all open races this year, with the incumbents term-limited.

Governor

• Democratic primary: U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, Attorney General Phil Weiser
• Republican primary: state Rep. Scott Bottoms, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, Victor Marx

Attorney general

• Republican primary: El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen, David Willson
• Democratic primary: Hetal Doshi, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, David Seligman

Secretary of state

• Democratic primary: state Sen. Jessie Danielson, Jefferson County Clerk Amanda Gonzalez
• Republican primary: James Wiley (a former Colorado Libertarian Party official), unopposed

Treasurer

• Republican primary: Fremont County Commissioner Kevin Grantham, unopposed
• Democratic primary: state Sen. Jeff Bridges, unopposed

U.S. Senate

• Democratic primary: state Sen. Julie Gonzales, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper (incumbent)
• Republican primary: state Sen. Mark Baisley, unopposed

Re: “Attack on Pope Leo, posting of Jesus image criticized,” April 14 news story

When in the course of human events, could someone have ever foreseen the time when the president of the United States would have to explain why he posted and unposted a picture of himself as Jesus? Will there be additional low points of this presidency before Congress realizes it is time to face the reality of the president����ap mind and protect what����ap left of the reputation of the office?

Cindy Robertson, Denver

Just when you think President Trump can’t get any crazier, he does (e.g., attacking Iran, insulting the pope, etc.). What will be the crisis du jour tomorrow? I think it����ap time for Congress to begin 25th Amendment proceedings. Please. Before it����ap too late.

Flint Whitlock, Denver

Let’s understand the impeachment clause

Re: “,” April 9 commentary

Kirsten Matoy Carlson is mistaken about the consequences of a guilty verdict by the U.S. Senate after an impeachment trial. She states, “If the person is convicted and removed from office, only then can senators vote on whether to permanently disqualify that person from ever again holding federal office.”

That is not what the Constitution says! states: “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States…” There is only one vote.

Nowhere in the Constitution with regard to impeachment is there any reference or mandate that after conviction, senators “may” or “can” vote to bar the convicted person from holding federal office in the future. Legal scholars hinge that false opinion on their false understanding of grammar. The word “and” is a conjunction. It joins independent clauses, indicating a connection between the two, especially between items of the same type or class. Removal from office and barring from holding any other office are of the same class and type! In essence, the Senate is saying, “You violated your oath of office and the public trust, therefore you are removed from office and cannot be trusted in any federal office in the future.”

Tom Hubbard, Denver

Tax return takes nonsensical route to Ogden, Utah via USPS

I sent my tax return to the IRS in Ogden, Utah, via certified mail on March 13. It took a vacation and flew to Sarasota, Fla., then to Tampa, then back to Sarasota before making a leisurely trip to its original destination. It arrived there on March 27.

Using flying distance, an approximate 400-mile trip became a 3,550-mile journey.

Conspiracy theorists want to know whether the USPS has been tasked with delaying our refunds as long as possible. Or are they just practicing for what they plan to do with our ballots for the midterms?

Dee Nelson, Centennial

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The denials follow a third disaster relief request submitted earlier this year by Colorado’s members of Congress. The federal decision blocks access to critical FEMA public assistance for affected communities, as well as statewide hazard mitigation support.

is related to September’s Elk and Lee fires in Rio Blanco County, and is in response to recovery efforts in La Plata, Archuleta, and Mineral counties following flooding that occurred last October in western Colorado.

“This is incredibly disappointing for Coloradans. Colorado communities have done everything right — responding quickly, documenting the damage, and working in good faith with federal partners — only for the Trump administration to deny funding to help Colorado communities recover,” Polis said in the Monday news release.

“These disasters caused real damage to homes, infrastructure, and local economies, and Coloradans should not be left to shoulder these costs alone. We will continue supporting impacted communities and exploring every available path forward, but the federal government must be a reliable partner in disaster recovery.”

Without federal assistance, the announcement stated affected communities will have fewer resources to recover, will have to make challenging decisions about how to balance expensive recovery costs with limited resources, will be at heightened risk of future disasters, and may not be able to perform the repairs to energy systems and river channels that would help them avoid future damage and disruption.

The Elk and Lee fires burned more than 137,000 acres from Aug. 2–29, 2025, and caused over $27 million in damages.

Flooding and mudslides further compounded damage to roads, bridges and public systems, according to the news release.

In Southwest Colorado, historic flooding from Oct. 10-14, 2025, caused more than $13 million in damages to infrastructure, including the destruction of over 60 miles of road, major impacts to water and wastewater systems and long-term risks to communities along the San Juan River basin.

The announcement stated Polis formally requested disaster declarations for both events in September and November 2025. The federal government denied both requests in December 2025, and the state submitted formal appeals in January.

“It is frustrating that for the first time in 35 years, the State of Colorado has been denied federal assistance as part of a major disaster declaration request,” said Kevin Klein, Director of the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

“Our damage assessments documented and showed that each of the disasters exceeded the federal thresholds for assistance. Our State Recovery Task Force will continue to work on alternatives to fill the gap, but providing substantial relief to the disaster survivors becomes much more difficult with this decision. I don’t want it to sound like we can just fill all the gaps — we can’t, but of course we will do our best to support them.”

Melat Kiros — who’s also a lawyer and a Ph.D student when she isn’t behind the counter at the Whittier Cafe — is picking up momentum in her first-ever political campaign. She’s running against longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District in Denver.

DeGette, who was sworn into office the year Kiros was born, has .

But Kiros, a Democratic socialist, rose to prominence after she demolished DeGette in the Democrats’ Denver County assembly last month. And while political observers, including Kiros herself, say the assembly process isn’t actually representative of who will vote in the June primary, the win still marked a surprising development in a race that many considered to be predetermined.

“This has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the fact that Denver Democrats want a fighter — somebody who is actually committed to transformative change,” Kiros said in an interview this week with The Denver Post.

Kiros didn’t keep DeGette off the ballot, but she gave her a scare. Kiros won 646 votes, or the support of 63% of those present at the county assembly. DeGette won 336, or 32% of the votes.

It was the first time DeGette had lost a county assembly vote since she initially won her seat in Congress in the 1996 election.

Two weeks after the county assembly, DeGette, 68, narrowly won her place on the primary ballot at the 1st Congressional District party assembly, receiving 33% support — just above the 30% threshold to make the ballot. A third primary candidate, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, , but her voter signatures are still under review by the state.

Denver-based state Rep. Javier Mabrey, who endorsed Kiros, said he saw her as part of a larger movement within the Democratic Party: voters who don’t want to see the same types of candidates elected.

Like New York City’s new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Kiros is a more progressive Democrat than those who currently make up the majority of the party’s members in Congress, he said.

“I think there’s an energy for politics that says, ‘Our problems are more complicated than Donald Trump alone. We’ve got to confront the conditions that led to Donald Trump,” Mabrey said of the Republican president. “I think Melat has tapped into that.”

Kiros will still have a long way to go if she hopes to pull off a win of the June 30 primary, however. The assembly gathered only a tiny sliver of the 416,000 people eligible to vote in the June Democratic primary — 230,000 unaffiliated voters and 186,000 registered Democrats, as of March 1, according to the secretary of state’s office.

A spokesperson for DeGette’s campaign said the congresswoman was proud to have made the ballot through the assembly process.

“This is ultimately only a small first step with a small group of people,” Jennie Peek-Dunstone wrote in an email. “Now, we are talking with hundreds of thousands of Democrats and unaffiliated voters across the District. Diana has deep support across Denver because she’s always fought for us. She’ll keep championing our progressive values by standing up to Trump, fighting for universal health care, and defending our democracy — just as she always has.”

Denver is a Democratic stronghold, meaning that whoever wins the primary is all but guaranteed to win the general election. In 2024, DeGette defeated her Republican challenger with 77% of the vote.

Kiros’ background

A child of immigrants, Kiros was born in Ethiopia but moved to Denver with her family as a baby. She left the city to attend Washington College in Maryland and went on to attend law school at the University of Notre Dame. After passing the bar exam, she began work as a securities regulation attorney at , one of the biggest law firms in the country.

Kiros said that two years in, firm leaders fired her for a by Hamas in Israel, which responded by launching a war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the post, she questioned Israel’s legitimacy as a state and disavowed about the rise in antisemitism.

“This letter rightfully rebukes the anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and bigotry of all kinds that has spiked in recent weeks, but then goes on (to my confusion) to cite ‘calls for the elimination of the Israeli state’ as anti-Semitism,” she wrote. “… To conflate such bigotry with the geo-political question of Israel’s legitimacy is one of the greatest travesties in this conflict.”

More recently, Kiros has been criticized for sharing last month with a video that said Democrats “fellate Israel” and “suck (expletive).” The video was promoting an online rally for progressive candidates and speakers.

Kiros said she didn’t write that phrasing and doesn’t endorse that language.

After her firing from the law firm, Kiros says she decided to get more involved in politics. Now, she’s pursuing a doctorate in public policy with a focus on “democracy reform” at .

In 2024, she volunteered as the communications director for Democrat John Padora’s campaign in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District — one of the most conservative seats in the state and now represented by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.

‘Our party isn’t fighting back’

Kiros’ online ads , calling out not only DeGette but also former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. One shows large Xs over photos of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former President Joe Biden while Kiros says: “We hear politicians say over and over that we need bold leadership, progress and change. We’ve heard this for years. Decades. But they never deliver.”

“Our party isn’t fighting back like they should,” she goes on to say.

Kiros is endorsed by the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Justice Democrats. She says that if elected, she sees herself aligning with members of Congress like U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

She would use her position, she said, to “call out the Democrats who are not actually fighting for our values” and pressure them to change the votes she disagrees with. That could include civil protests and threatening quorum.

Her top three policy priorities would be passing “Medicare for All” and universal child care and creating a publicly financed election system similar to the one that Denver uses in city elections, which includes public matching for smaller-dollar donations.

DeGette supporters emphasize that the congresswoman is also a co-sponsor of Medicare for All legislation. Angie Anderson, a Platt Park resident and mother of 2 young children, said she’s heard DeGette talk about it.

“I consider myself pretty progressive, and I think that she represents me very well,” said Anderson, who said she has voted for DeGette in every election since she’s lived in Denver.

Ocasio-Cortez even gave DeGette a shout-out for her support of the policy .

“She is one of the most powerful people in Congress on health care,” Ocasio-Cortez said to the crowd of 30,000 people. “And Diana DeGette is a co-sponsor of Medicare for All. She believes in the guaranteed right to health care for every American. Thank you for electing her.”

Anderson said she thinks Kiros and DeGette are actually pretty similar politically.

“I just think the real difference is that Rep. DeGette has many years of experience and is actually a very skilled policymaker and legislator,” she said. “I take issue with the idea that youth and inexperience is fundamentally required to effect change.”

What did assembly win mean?

After Kiros’ assembly win, a wide swath of political observers jumped in to say that while the event’s outcome was surprising, it wasn’t particularly meaningful for the upcoming primary.

Doug Friednash, a former Denver city attorney and chief of staff to then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, wrote in a Post opinion piece recently that assemblies exclude the vast majority of voters, resulting in a “tiny, highly motivated slice of activists” to determine results.

“More and more extreme candidates in both parties have effectively used these caucuses to fly under the radar and effectively organized a small cadre of activists, like the Democratic Socialists, to show up at the caucus, leading to stunning results that make most voters shake their heads in extreme disbelief,” wrote Friednash, now a partner with Denver-based law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck.

At the very least, the win showed that Kiros’ team found a way to out-organize DeGette’s team. But it remains to be seen if that will continue through the primary election.

Kiros and her supporters agree that her assembly win doesn’t mean she’s a shoo-in to win the primary.

“I don’t think that folks who talk about the assembly not being reflective of the general electorate are wrong,” Kiros said. But she noted it was unusual for an incumbent to lose an assembly vote.

“DeGette has been challenged before,” Kiros said. “This is a different kind of campaign.”

Mabrey said finding ways to raise money for her campaign will be one of the keys for Kiros in the remaining months before the primary.

“Melat����ap going to need an injection of grassroots campaign cash to keep up,” he said.

Through the end of 2025, she had raised about $204,000 and spent nearly $138,000. DeGette had raised about $729,000 and spent $507,000 through then, while James had raised about $179,000 and spent $86,600.

Despite having lower cash reserves than DeGette, Kiros is getting recognized more often when in public, she said. During a recent hourlong interview with The Post at a Capitol Hill coffee shop, two people stopped by the table to introduce themselves and voice their support for her.

“I’m totally voting for you, dude,” one said. “Your campaign is (expletive) awesome.”

Between now and June, Kiros plans to knock on doors, call voters, work with businesses and use digital advertising to get her message out. Nearly 200 people volunteered at a recent weekend canvassing event, she said.

“The thing that we need to do to win,” she said, “is to give people enough faith that getting involved will make a difference.”

Staff writer Seth Klamann contributed to this story.

The data provides detailed insights into the dramatic effects of the Trump administration’s mass arrest and deportation efforts in the state and across the country — what one immigration attorney previously described as the federal government’s “deportation machine.”

The share of arrestees who have criminal convictions has plummeted, the data shows, while deportations of those with no criminal history have surged, despite federal officials’ claims that they’re pursuing the The Denver Post analyzed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data . It included arrests in the full year ending Jan. 20, the anniversary of the start of Trump’s second term.

Of the thousands arrested in the state, 78% had a listed date of departure — indicating that they’d already been removed from the United States.

The people arrested in Colorado came from more than 80 countries spread across five continents. Two thousand and one came from Mexico and 782 from Venezuela. Among others, 316 were from Guatemala, 22 from China, a dozen from Afghanistan and four from the United Kingdom.

They ranged in age from a 91-year-old Mexican man deported last year to two children who were, at most, a  year old; one of them has also been deported, the data shows. At least 121 people were younger than 18. Ten of the arrestees were Iranians, all arrested within days of the in June.

Five Venezuelans were removed under the statute created by the Alien Enemies Act, the 18th-century law that . All five were transferred to a Texas facility and then were removed on March 15, 2025, the data set shows. The men then disappear from the data. On that same day, nearly 300 people were sent to the prison in El Salvador from the same Texas detention center, .

In the 12 months prior to Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, 1,202 immigrants without legal status were arrested in Colorado. More than 58% of them had prior criminal convictions, while nearly 24% more had pending charges. Only 17.7% had no criminal history.

Looking at the Trump-era arrests, those trends flipped. Of the 4,750 people arrested over the ensuing 12 months, the largest group — 38% — had no criminal history, compared to nearly 35% with prior convictions and 26% with pending charges.

Surge in ICE presence, arrests

The Post analyzed ICE arrest and detention data obtained and released in full by the , which is composed of researchers and lawyers based primarily at the University of California, Berkeley.

For the purposes of its analysis, The Post examined arrests that occurred in Colorado during the 12-month period that began when Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025, and compared it to arrests made during President Joe Biden’s final year in office.

The Deportation Data Project, using data obtained from public records requests, has released four broad batches of ICE data detailing arrests and detentions since Trump’s return to office. ICE has released far more limited information on its operations, often focusing on arrests of immigrants with criminal backgrounds.

Using unique identifiers attached to each arrestee, The Post excluded a number of apparent duplicate arrests from its analysis. In both 2024 and 2025, The Post examined only the arrests that the data identified as occurring in Colorado or at a specific location within the state.

The Post used publicly available information and multiple datasets to match more than a dozen specific arrests — of a Colombian family from Durango; of a Brazilian-born college student on I-70; of a Peruvian school teacher and her family; of a who later died in a Mississippi detention center — to corresponding entries in the Berkeley data.

The surge in arrests came as ICE has significantly ramped up its presence in the state. Gregory Davies, a senior ICE official in Denver, testified in court last month that the number of deportation officers in the area has more than doubled — to roughly 200 — since Trump’s return to office. The Denver field office also has responsibility for Wyoming.

A recent of internal ICE data identified more than 5,200 ICE arrests in Colorado and Wyoming between Trump’s inauguration and mid-December. In the Denver area, the Times found, arrests peaked last summer and have declined since.

The Post’s analysis found a similar trend in Colorado: There were more than 500 arrests in both June and July, averaging more than 17 per day. Over the fall and winter, they dropped, averaging between 12 and 14 per day.

The ICE detention center in Aurora has flexed its capacity to the maximum possible and can now hold more than 1,500 detainees, according to federal contracting records. When Trump was inaugurated, the facility held just over 1,000 people. By the end of the year, its daily population regularly topped 1,400, the Berkeley data shows.

Federal officials have also pursued plans to open one or more additional detention facilities in Colorado.

In an unsigned statement Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said the data — which was obtained by the data project through public records requests — “is not accurate.” An unidentified media office representative did not say what part of the data was incorrect and did not directly address questions about The Post’s findings.

“The facts are: ICE is targeting criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, criminals, gang members and more,” the DHS representative wrote in an email to The Post. “Nearly 70% of ICE arrests nationwide are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.”

Numbers are ‘not at all surprising’

In October, attorneys suing ICE for its arrest practices questioned the now-former head of ICE’s Denver field office about a prior Post analysis of the Berkeley data. That official, Robert Guadian, said he didn’t know exact numbers but didn’t dispute The Post’s findings.

Davies, the other senior official, testified last month that the agency now averages between 15 and 25 arrests per day. The Post’s analysis shows ICE has arrested just under 15 people per day on average since late January of this year and 13 per day since the start of Trump’s term.

The findings also align with what immigrant-rights advocates and immigration attorneys are seeing in real time.

“They’re not at all surprising,” Laura Lunn, an immigration attorney with the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said of the numbers. “They’re (emotionally) deflating, but not surprising.”

“Obviously, so much has happened since this administration took over, but I think a lot of folks don’t necessarily remember that Trump announced Operation Aurora shortly (before) he took office,” she continued. “Communities in Denver and Aurora were targeted for mass enforcement actions. We saw military-grade vehicles rolling down the streets of Denver before we saw the same thing happening in L.A., Chicago, Minneapolis.”

The surge in arrests has led to an accompanying growth in deportations, particularly as federal officials have moved to keep immigrants detained indefinitely by, among other things, granting bail far less often to longtime residents of the United States.

Over the past year, according to earlier Post reporting, an unprecedented number of Aurora detainees have been granted voluntary departures — essentially deportations without a more punitive court order. More than 1,700 people have requested voluntary removals from the facility since the start of 2025, according to — a level unparalleled by any period since the researchers began tracking it nearly 30 years ago.

Of the 4,750 people arrested in Colorado during Trump’s first year back in office, 3,710 have already left the United States, the Berkeley data shows.

More than 62% of those arrested and removed last year had never been convicted of a crime, while more than a third had no criminal history.

Her Tuesday evening announcement came 48 hours before she and her Democratic rival were set to compete in the 4th District Democratic assembly Thursday night.

Calvarese threw her support to Navy veteran Eileen Laubacher, despite having sued the Colorado Democratic Party over her opponent’s eligibility to compete for a nomination to the June 30 primary ballot. Calvarese’s lawsuit last month.

“We’ve made the difficult decision to suspend my campaign to represent Colorado’s 4th Congressional District,” Calvarese’s campaign . “Congratulations to Eileen Laubacher and her team. I hope this carries through to a win in November.”

The two had competed for support in local caucuses and county assemblies ahead of the district assembly. Calvarese thanked her supporters and said only that “I’m sorry we fell short” in Tuesday. She also was trailing Laubacher in fundraising at the end of 2025.

In a statement Wednesday, Laubacher said Calvarese “has helped elevate the visibility of this race and engage people across the district in meaningful ways.”

“It����ap time to turn the corner and focus fully on what comes next and what matters most: defeating Lauren Boebert in November,” she said.

Laubacher, a longtime Republican and then unaffiliated voter, . She had the biggest haul of the final quarter of last year of any candidate running for Congress in Colorado, pulling down just over $2 million and bringing her contribution total in the election cycle to nearly $6.5 million.

She also had about five times the cash on hand that Calvarese had at year’s end.

Calvarese was chasing the Democratic nomination through the congressional assembly process only, while Laubacher had been competing both at the assembly and by submitting signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office in March to get on the primary ballot through the petition process.

Laubacher’s petition has from state elections officials. But she stands as the only Democratic candidate left in the race after contenders John Padora and Jenna Preston neither petitioned their way onto the ballot nor were listed as contenders at Thursday’s district assembly on the website.

Laubacher will have a tough road ahead in the 4th District, given its makeup as the most Republican-leaning district in the state. Calvarese lost to Boebert in 2024 by over 10 percentage points after Boebert switched over from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.

U.S. District Court Judge Gordon P. Gallagher ruled that federal authorities could not compel officials in Denver or at the state level “to implement federal regulatory programs.” He rejected the federal government’s attempt to strike down the city’s and the state’s rules limiting cooperation with immigration enforcement, and he fully dismissed the lawsuit, which was filed in May, less than four months after President Donald Trump returned to office.

“This lawsuit by the Trump administration was a straightforward attack on Colorado’s sovereignty,” Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement. He was one of the named defendants in the suit, alongside Gov. Jared Polis, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, the city of Denver, the state of Colorado, and other prominent officials.

“The 10th Amendment protects states’ rights to make our own decisions about how our personnel protect public safety,” Weiser said. “In the order, the court makes it clear that the federal government cannot force states and local governments to use their resources for federal civil immigration enforcement.”

In a statement, Johnston said that “Denver will always stand for safe communities and accountable government.”

“Instead of being bullied by President Trump, we will continue to do what we do best in making our neighborhoods safer, strengthening trust with the community, and delivering for Denver families,” the mayor wrote.

The dismissal was a victory for Colorado’s top elected officials and for the immigration policies they’ve enacted and strengthened in recent years — which federal officials have derided as so-called sanctuary laws that shield immigrants from federal enforcement.

Those laws generally prohibit state and local officials from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents or allowing the use of state resources for civil immigration enforcement.

Indeed, just as the Trump administration was filing its lawsuit last spring, the legislature passed a new law that further curtailed cooperation with ICE. The federal government then amended its lawsuit to include the new statute. State lawmakers are considering new measures to tighten those rules even further this year.

In a Tuesday evening statement, Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama called the lawsuit “baseless” and reiterated a recurring Polis argument that Colorado “is not a sanctuary state.”

“If the Trump administration wants to get serious about decreasing crime, instead of wasting time and money on meritless lawsuits, we are happy to share the actions we are taking in Colorado that have driven year-over-year reductions in crime,” Maruyama wrote. “We look forward to working with our local and federal partners to make Colorado even safer by tackling serious crime.”

In its lawsuit, the DOJ challenged four statewide laws — including the one passed last year — as well as two municipal laws in Denver. The Trump administration had argued that the immigration powers granted to the federal government preempted those local limitations and that the laws had “singled out federal immigration officials … for unfavorable and uncooperative treatment.”

Colorado and Denver officials asked Gallagher to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the federal government couldn’t use city and state resources to carry out immigration enforcement. Denver city officials wrote in court filings that the lawsuit “has no basis in law, logic, or policy. It is nothing more than political theater.”

Echoing rulings from federal judges elsewhere, Gallagher, who is based in Colorado, wrote that “the Constitution does not grant Congress the authority to ‘dragoon’ state officers into administering federal law.”

The federal government has filed similar lawsuits against other states and cities that limit federal immigration cooperation. A federal judge in Illinois dismissed litigation targeting Chicago and the state of Illinois last year, while cases against officials in California and Los Angeles; New York City; New Jersey; and elsewhere are still winding through the courts.

Bimestefer has overseen , or HCPF, since January 2018, when she took the job under then-Gov. John Hickenlooper. The agency’s longest-serving leader, she is set to leave the role on April 10.

She led the agency through the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic and as it weathered recent controversies, including program overpayments and allegations of massive fraud in a transportation program.

Problems within the agency — and criticisms of Bimestefer — have mounted, particularly as lawmakers have debated how best to fill a $1.5 billion budget shortfall this year and handle Medicaid’s ever-increasing costs. HCPF’s total budget last year was $18 billion, with $4.2 billion of that coming from the state’s general fund. As of May 2025, more than 1.1 million adults and children were covered by Medicald in Colorado, .

A group of state senators began drafting a resolution of no confidence in Bimestefer after several Medicaid billing problems came to light in recent weeks. The agency was significantly overpaying providers in its Medicaid transportation service for several years to the tune of tens of millions of dollars — an error missed by state officials even as they conducted an extensive review of the same program because it was riddled with fraud.

Twenty-eight senators — a majority of the chamber’s 35 members — had signed on to the resolution calling for Polis to remove Bimestefer from her post, said Sen. Kyle Mullica, a Thornton Democrat.

Mullica said the resolution listed the transportation billing errors as well as potential overpayments for autism care that totaled $75 million and have drawn federal scrutiny. It also noted that more than 500,000 people lost Medicaid coverage during the post-pandemic Medicaid “unwind,” as temporary eligibility expansions expired.

He said he presented the resolution to Polis’ staff last week, and lawmakers had planned to introduce it either Monday or “in the very near future.”

HCPF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the resolution. A spokesman for Polis said he would check to see if the governor’s office had additional comment beyond its initial announcement about Bimestefer’s departure.

Through a spokesman, Bimestefer declined an earlier interview request Monday. Her compensation last year was $228,706, according to .

In a statement put out by Polis’ office, Bimestefer said she had “the privilege of advancing systems that help Coloradans — often in the most difficult times in their lives — get the care and support they need to rise and thrive.”

“Working alongside HCPF leaders, staff and stakeholders, we have navigated one unprecedented challenge after another for over eight years to protect the state’s most vulnerable, with this current chapter proving to be incredibly difficult,” she wrote.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, were more critical of her tenure. Mullica said it had been difficult to grapple with the painful Medicaid cuts contemplated this year alongside apparent mistakes from HCPF.

Flawed analysis caused Colorado Medicaid program’s costs to surge and made it ‘attractive’ to fraud

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican who sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, said Bimestefer should've left long ago and that her departure "marks the end of a failed era for this department."

Bimestefer's time overseeing HCPF included the entirety of the pandemic, which hit the U.S. in 2020 and saw the rapid expansion of Medicaid to include a broader swath of the population. The program has been expanded in other ways at the direction of lawmakers, and it has weathered similar rapid increases that plagued other Medicaid programs nationwide.

She also oversaw the pandemic unwind in the years since.

“In her tenure, Colorado has taken major steps to increase price transparency, reduce hospital and prescription drug costs, and hold the health care industry accountable," Polis said in a statement. "Her legacy is one we hope to build on moving forward, and know that she will continue having an important impact on health care and serving her state in her next chapter."

At a signing ceremony for an unrelated bill on Monday afternoon, Polis did not take questions from reporters.

Bimestefer's departure comes as cash-strapped lawmakers grapple with a yawning hole in the state budget that's been partially fueled by increases in Medicaid spending. Lawmakers this year are discussing how to cut Medicaid to make up for the gap, and they've told reporters that they want a deeper analysis of how Medicaid, and HCPF, is operated.

Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat who also serves on the budget committee, called Bimestefer's resignation a good first step to righting the beleaguered agency. She said she had lost trust that she was receiving accurate information from the department and its operations.

The lack of transparency, she said -- combined with the series of multimillion-dollar scandals -- ends up hitting families and people who rely on the life-and-death service that HCPF oversees.

"This is not a small thing," Amabile said. She pointed to the department's overpayment for extra-large wheelchair transportation, which may have cost the state upwards of $100 million. "And it's coming now at the cost to families and patients."

Lawmakers' desire for additional oversight, along with lawmakers' call for Bimestefer to be removed, comes after the legislature learned that HCPF serially overpaid for services in the Medicaid transportation program. At one point earlier this year, the state was paying 10 times what it should've been for the wheelchair transports.

The broader transportation program was also plagued with allegations of fraud in 2023 -- shortly after HCPF, relying on an apparently faulty analysis, recommended a significant increase in reimbursement rates in that service. After that change was made, costs to the program exploded from $70 million to more than $300 million, and the error was not corrected until last summer.

Those problems, along with the potential autism overpayments, have drawn the scrutiny of federal regulators and Republicans in Congress, who sent a letter to state officials asking for more information about how the state detects and limits fraud.

Mullica says Bimestefer's departure will give lawmakers and the state a fresh start.

"It allows us to really move on from (those issues) and start having conversations of what a sustainable Medicaid program is going to look like," he said. "That����ap really important, and I think it����ap been hard with a lot of the mistakes that we’ve talked about that have happened in that department, with (Bimestefer) at the helm. Now we’re able to move past that, hopefully."

In a statement, the Colorado Hospital Association said it hoped for a more collaborative HCPF going forward.

"Looking ahead, we urge legislative leaders to seek input from a broad coalition of patients, providers, advocates, payers and policymakers," wrote Jeff Tieman, the group's president and CEO. "Together, we can suggest paths forward to stabilize Medicaid and HCPF, strengthen our workforce, and make Colorado a national leader in smart, people-centered health care. That long-term, collaborative work must be a top priority for the legislature and for the current and incoming administrations."

Prior to joining HCPF, Bimestefer ran her own consulting business and worked for Cigna for more than 15 years, most recently as president of the insurance company's Mountain States division.