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.

But in a seemingly contradictory trend that has continued from last year, a wide plurality of voters still view the city as headed in the right direction. Compared to other figures in city politics, Johnston’s favorability rating outpaced those of his lesser-known opponents in next year’s election — but fell short of congressional candidate Melat Kiros, who had a net-positive rating among voters.

The Colorado Polling Institute’s surveys have found that Johnston’s favorability has steadily fallen since 2024, when 48% said they have a favorable opinion of him and 38% said they viewed him in a negative light. In 2025, 46% saw him favorably and 46% unfavorably. In , 39% of city voters viewed him favorably.

Most voters have consistently said over the years that Johnston, who was elected in 2023, is moving the city in the right direction but that he still needs to do more, according to the results.

“It’s these voters who, early in his term, were saying: ‘I’m seeing some progress. That’s good. I think he needs to do more.’ And as his term has worn on, those voters have become more and more dissatisfied,” said Kevin Ingham, a pollster who is the Democratic half of CPI’s bipartisan research team. “I think we’re just getting to a point in his term where even if people can see something’s moving in the right direction, they don’t feel like the things have moved fast enough or that they have quite lived up to the promises that he made.”

The survey of 400 likely voters in the November election was conducted Aug. 11-15. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

In the 2025 survey, Ingham said most people who reported negative associations with Johnston had specific reasons. This year, nearly half of those surveyed just made general comments about him simply not doing a good job.

About a quarter of those who did approve of his performance cited his work on homelessness as the reason why. His efforts on homelessness had mixed results in the poll overall. When asked about that issue specifically, the share of people saying he has made “significant progress” doubled between 2024 and 2026, from 8% to 16%. However, that’s still lower than the 18% who said this year that Johnston had made homelessness worse.

Homelessness is still seen as voters’ top issue in Denver, followed by affordable housing and crime.

In a statement responding to the poll results, Johnston spokesman Jon Ewing said, “Denverites agree: the city is better today than it was before Mayor Johnston took office. From historic reductions in homelessness and crime to transformative investments in affordable housing and downtown recovery, Denver residents see the progress and believe the city is moving in the right direction, even as they expect us to keep delivering.”

Lori Weigel, the group’s Republican pollster, said it’s difficult for the group to say whether the results might be predictive of the 2027 mayoral election, when Johnston will run for a second term.

“Elections are about choices,” she said. “The focus is not going to be (only) on the mayor — there’s going to be an opponent, there’s going to be a contrast there.”

Other candidates and issues

As Johnston’s approval decreases, slightly more of Denverites surveyed said they viewed socialism favorably.

In CPI’s 2025 poll, 52% of voters said they had a positive view of socialism. This year it was 55%. The share of respondents who said they have a “very favorable” view of socialism rose from 20% to 25% during that time. About the same share of people reported having a positive view of capitalism — about 47% of respondents — in 2025 and 2026.

“There’s some pretty stark divisions of opinion towards socialism and capitalism by age,” Ingham said. “Younger voters are pretty down on capitalism.”

Voters appeared to be generally dissatisfied with the status quo more than specifically unhappy with capitalism, he said. Most people who mentioned a favorable view of socialism pointed to universal healthcare, a fairer economy and “taxing the rich.”

That’s in line with an electorate that recently chose Kiros, a democratic socialist, as the Democratic nominee for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District. Kiros, who made national headlines when she defeated 15-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in June, also saw a higher favorability rating than DeGette in the recent poll.

Nearly 45% of voters said they viewed her favorably compared to 35% who said the same of DeGette, according to the results. About 30% said they had a negative view of Kiros and nearly 50% said they view DeGette unfavorably.

The pollsters also asked for input about how voters view two of Johnston’s opponents in his upcoming bid for reelection: Lisa Calderón and City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis.

Lewis, whom the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America just endorsed, had less name recognition and favorability than Calderón, who’s run twice before. About 65% of respondents said they had never heard of Lewis, while 47% said they had never heard of Calderón. Only 15% said they had a favorable view of Lewis and 19% said they had an unfavorable view, with the rest having no opinion. Calderón saw 27% favorability, compared to 25% unfavorability.

Slightly more respondents than last year said they viewed the City Council unfavorably, with 44% reporting negative associations. The Denver Public School Board continues to have a steady low favorability, with only 25% of voters viewing the board and its members in a positive light, according to the results.

Denverites reported that their top three issues for the city are homelessness, affordable housing and crime.

The organization’s 2,000 members voted to support Lewis after an internal process that included a candidate forum, the group’s leaders said. The group declined to say who else sought its members’ endorsement.

“Shontel Lewis has spent her career advancing socialist policies to help working people,” said Katie Blakey, one of two Denver DSA co-chairs, in a news release. “With the city in a budget crisis and survival becoming more precarious for everyday Denverites, we need a mayor with the vision, experience, and tenacity to make meaningful change happen.”

Lewis filed to run for mayor last month, which means she won’t defend her council position in 2027. She instead will take on Johnston, whom voters elected in 2023, and repeat progressive candidate Lisa Calderón, along with several other candidates in the April election.

Denver DSA also endorsed Lewis in her successful 2023 campaign to represent the council’s northeast 8th District.

“I am proudly running again as a democratic socialist, and having the support of Denver’s DSA behind another one of my races means the world to me,” Lewis said in the release.

“I was asked to run for mayor by union organizers, my neighbors who go to work every day and still struggle, tired folks close to losing their hope,” she added. “We can run a campaign of joy, one centering what our city and her residents deserve. We will bring lasting and real change to Denver.”

The backing of the Denver DSA could give a meaningful boost to Lewis’ campaign in the wake of the group’s recent popularity, both locally and nationally, in Democratic primary elections.

In June, DSA-backed candidate Melat Kiros defeated longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in the primary to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, which is almost entirely made up of Denver residents. She’s now the favorite in the fall election. Kiros joined a group of several other who ousted establishment-backed candidates.

Despite expressions of earlier interest in endorsing someone to replace former Councilwoman Sarah Parady as an at-large councilmember in this fall’s special election, no candidate received enough votes from the Denver DSA members to receive the chapter’s support, chapter co-chair Susie Ramsey said.

Parady, whom the Denver DSA backed in her 2023 election, resigned for health reasons in August.

wrote the New York-based headline writers at The Wall Street Journal on July 2 days after Kiros won the primary. The reason for Colorado’s primary results, the Journal concluded, is that “socialist insurgents” have taken over here. President Donald Trump, predictably, went further, saying that the recent elections in New York and Colorado prove that the “menace of Communism” is rampant.

But do those distant observers have a clear view of Colorado? The truth is that the primary election results had more to do with DeGette and Bennet than with their challengers. The people of Colorado — a state that harbors extremely few socialists — were voicing their disappointment with two incumbents who seem to have lost interest in their constituents.

After 30 years in Congress, Rep. DeGette has been acting as if she is entitled to her seat for life, and she can’t be bothered to waste any of her important time dealing with the people she is supposed to represent. During the primary campaign, she refused media interview requests – too busy, was the explanation – while her challenger, Kiros, showed up on every news show and answered every question.

I ran into this attitude when I asked DeGette’s office if I could meet with her to get some information for a book I was writing. I requested 20 minutes with her, either in Denver or Washington. But this could not be arranged. I was informed that the way I could meet with my representative in Congress was to call in to a “telephone town hall,” and hope that I was one of the handful of constituents chosen to ask a question.

If anything, Bennet was even less engaged. He was so sick and tired of representing us in the U.S. Senate that he came home in the middle of his term to run for governor.  His primary opponent, Phil Weiser, kept asking why Bennet wasn’t back in Washington, using his Senate seniority in the fight against Donald Trump. The voters were asking the same question.

Both DeGette and Bennet have said that they support universal health care. But in 2016, when 154,000 Coloradans signed the petitions required to put a universal coverage proposal on the state ballot (it was Amendment 69), those two sided with their big corporate contributors and opposed the citizens’ initiative (it lost).

So Colorado voters were showing themselves to be not communists, but constituents. People here actually expected their elected representatives in Washington to pay attention to the folks back home. The real lesson of the Colorado primary election is not a “socialist wave,” but rather that members of Congress should never forget who sent them there.

T. R. Reid, of Denver, is the author of The Healing of America –A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.

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This November, the organization is preparing to defend an at-large seat on the Denver City Council that will soon be vacated early by a DSA member. The election will be unlike any other municipal contest, both because of its timing and how it will be conducted.

Councilwoman Sarah Parady announced in June that she would resign her position as a council member representing the entire city in August because of health problems. That means voters will get a chance to choose her replacement through a special election on the November ballot.

Five months later, when the remainder of Parady’s term expires, the seat will again be up in the normal municipal election.

Complicating things further: The winners of those two elections for the exact same position will be decided in different ways. In November, whoever wins the most votes — even if it’s just a slim plurality — will be elected. But to win in April, a candidate must notch more than 50% of the vote; otherwise, a runoff election will take place.

Because the November election will potentially be easier to win than the one in April, the unusual contest likely will draw many candidates. The officially nonpartisan contest could also show how much of an appetite Denver voters have for farther-left candidates in municipal elections against more establishment figures

The Denver DSA chapter is hoping that last month’s upset victory by proud democratic socialist Melat Kiros over longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette — in the Democratic primary to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District — will translate to another win in November, and again next April.

The congressional district, where Kiros is now favored to win in November, is made up almost entirely of Denver. Soon, the local chapter of the group will conduct an extensive internal process to decide whom it will endorse for the council at-large special election.

“The left in general, including democratic socialists, believe that the seat should go to somebody who is ideologically similar to Sarah so (that) the ideological makeup of council stays the same,” said Deep Singh Badhesha, a Denver DSA member and a Democratic strategist. “The wind is at our backs after this huge win in June, and this is going to be in November — when the electorate is younger and includes more people of color.”

The Denver council has 13 members, including the two at-large members elected citywide. The other 11 represent geographic districts.

‘Six months to prove that you’re worthy’

The campaign for the November special election won’t actually kick off until Parady formally resigns, which she said she intends to do on Aug. 5. Then candidates will have a short period to file for the seat, according to the city’s election website.

Possible candidates include the seven people who , most of them since Parady announced her resignation. Two of those contenders, Jeff Walker and Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand, said they intended to file for the November election as well.

“It����ap an interesting race. It����ap going to be a sprint,” said Monica Martinez, executive director of the Fax Partnership nonprofit on East Colfax Avenue, who plans to run in November. “Once you get in there (as the winner), you have basically six months to prove that you’re worthy.”

Martinez said she thought the race was likely to be highly competitive, but she also hoped that her platform — which will focus on housing affordability, anti-displacement measures and transportation — would appeal to voters who supported Kiros. In the June 30 primary, the first-time candidate , beating DeGette by more than 13 percentage points in the three-way race.

The back-to-back timelines for the council campaign are likely to prove tricky, other candidates said.

“Whoever is elected in November, they have to turn around and do it again,” said Walker, an infrastructure and housing advocate who previously served on the Regional Transportation District’s elected board. “They get to run two campaigns in six months.”

Maldonado Bad Hand hopes to become the council’s first tribally enrolled Native American.

“It����ap an interesting race this year, for sure,” she said. “There’s a lot of different political candidates that don’t usually end up in these spaces. It����ap really exciting to see.”

The special election is all but certain to be another test of the push and pull of the city’s more moderate Democrats running against more progressive contenders.

In the most recent round of council elections in 2023, groups backing moderates spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to challenge some of the most progressive candidates. Besides Parady, Councilwoman Shontel Lewis also won with Denver DSA backing, but .

A changing election system

Next spring’s regular election will use a new system of electing at-large council members after Denver voters approved a change in 2025. In past races, candidates for the two at-large seats all appeared under one question on the ballot and the top two vote-getters won the positions. Voters could support up to two of them.

Under the new setup, the two seats will be split into “At-large Seat A” and “At-large Seat B” positions — Parady’s seat has been designated “B” — and will require a majority of votes to win. If no candidate wins a majority in the first-round election, there will be a runoff in early June between the top two finishers for each position.

The change will make the at-large council elections function more like the races for mayor, auditor, and clerk and recorder, which are citywide and require a majority vote to win.

But before that race plays out, the campaign for this fall’s special election will unfold in a sped-up timeline.

Prospective candidates will need to gather 300 valid signatures to be approved for the ballot. That process will open when the council declares a vacancy (likely the same day as Parady’s formal resignation on Aug. 5). Candidates will have about two weeks to turn in their petitions by Aug. 20, .

DSA may choose a single candidate

If it backs a candidate, the special election will be an indicator of how far the Denver DSA’s influence can reach beyond Kiros’ win.

Susie Ramsey, a co-chair of the Denver DSA, said the chapter will go through multiple steps to decide whom to endorse. It’s possible that the membership could reject all the candidates who come forward. But so far, she said, members seem interested in finding someone to run.

“There is a lot of interest in the chapter in intervening in this race, whatever that looks like,” Ramsey said. “I think the success of the Melat campaign showed that there is a lot of appetite in the city in general for taking on power and taking on races we think we can win and putting socialists in government.”

The Denver DSA will begin its process, which is essentially an internal primary election system, by asking interested candidates to fill out a questionnaire. Then it will invite some of those candidates to participate in a forum. Finally, members will weigh in by voting. If enough agree on one candidate, the organization will formally endorse that person.

Assuming a DSA candidate does run, the race will provide clues for how Denver voters think about federal versus municipal elections — and how significant it was that the congressional primary had a 15-term incumbent, DeGette, for DSA supporters to rally against.

The two current at-large council members are largely DSA-aligned, but they landed in the seats under the previous election system. In the combined at-large race in 2023, Parady and Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez of the total votes in a large field.

Federal and local politics have changed significantly since 2023, with some indicators pointing to a more progressive voting base in Denver. The local DSA chapter added hundreds of members this year and is now up to 2,000 people, Ramsey said.

“What we saw is that if our membership is able to really cohere behind a candidate that we feel strongly about and that makes us feel really excited, we can take on a citywide race and we can win — and we can win by a big margin,” she said. “That also means that Denver DSA has a lot of responsibility to vet its candidates.”

Blau’s long-shot bid began when he submitted 2,212 petition signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office on July 9 to run as an unaffiliated candidate. Election officials said Friday afternoon that 1,918 of those signatures were from valid registered voters in the district, above the 1,500-signature threshold to make the ballot.

Blau, who is Jewish, that he was “particularly concerned by what I view as Ms. Kiros’s anti-Semitic rhetoric and her refusal to meet with leaders of Denver’s Jewish community to address their concerns.”

Blau has since set his Facebook settings to private. In a statement Friday, he said he’d heard concerns from voters about a range of matters and about President Donald Trump’s actions.

“I want the people of Denver to know this: if elected, I will not hesitate to stand up to the Trump administration whose policies are harming the people of Colorado’s First Congressional District and undermining the values we share,” Blau said. “I will oppose efforts that threaten affordable healthcare, weaken our democratic institutions, erode individual rights, and make life harder for working families.”

Kiros, a democratic socialist who defeated 15-term U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in a stunning upset in the June 30 Democratic primary, has been criticized for comments she made about 9/11, Israel’s legitimacy as a nation, and the deadly firebombing attack on Jews and others demonstrating in Boulder last year — an act she refused to call antisemitic.

Blau launched a hasty campaign for Congress early this month, giving him just days to turn in the requisite signatures by the secretary of state’s deadline. He beat the deadline by one hour.

In a statement Friday, Kiros said: “Denver voters will get a chance in November to choose who they want fighting for them in Congress. I’m fighting for working people, families, renters, tipped workers (and) folks drowning in medical debt who deserve a better future. I plan to make my case directly (to) the people of this district because that is what it means to live in a democracy.”

Also on the November ballot is Republican Christy Peterson, who has reported raising just over $2,000 for the race in recent filings, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Kiros likely holds an advantage in the race for the Denver-based congressional district because of its heavily Democratic lean. The seat hasn’t been occupied by anyone but a Democrat since Mike McKevitt, a Republican, represented it in the early 1970s.

The race will pit Lewis against incumbent Mayor Mike Johnston, who was elected in 2023 and has said he intends to run for a second term. She joins several other mayoral challengers, including repeat progressive candidate Lisa Calderón.

Lewis, who was endorsed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America when she ran for council in 2023, may be hoping to ride the momentum of that group’s recent successes in the city. DSA member Melat Kiros stunned the nation when she defeated longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary election to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, which consists mostly of Denver voters, on June 30.

Kiros joined a across the country who have defeated more moderate Democrats in recent months or have active challenges pending. It’s not yet clear whether the Denver DSA will endorse Lewis in her mayoral bid.

Attempts to reach Lewis for comment on Friday were unsuccessful. Late Friday afternoon, she posted on Instagram.

“I would be lying if I didn’t tell y’all, I am absolutely terrified,” she said. “And also, I am absolutely in such gratitude to be in a space to be able to make this journey, in this moment, with community — to make sure we raise the standard of what����ap possible in our communities and what we should be expecting from our government.”

Lewis had teased her announcement by creating a new Instagram account for her campaign earlier in the week, under the handle , and that withheld the office she was going to run for next.

She was elected to represent Denver’s District 8, which consists of much of northeast Denver, including Central Park, Park Hill and Montbello, in 2023. Her term doesn’t end until mid-2027, but since she can’t concurrently run for reelection to that seat, her decision to run for mayor means she won’t serve another term in that role.

Before joining the council, Lewis served as an elected director for the Regional Transportation District and as vice president at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.

Lewis has been one of the most progressive voices on the left-leaning council. She has helped shape several major council decisions, including recent municipal sentencing changes, a ban on law enforcement using facial coverings and the city ending a contract with the Salvation Army. She has also made a point of calling out every instance in which the city has reached a legal settlement over police misconduct, reading out a total of all taxpayer dollars that have been used to pay out those settlements each year.

Johnston told The Denver Post last year that he planned to run for reelection, but he hasn’t yet formally filed for the position. A spokesman for Johnston sent out a statement Friday in response to Lewis’ campaign.

“Mayor Johnston has taken on Denver’s toughest challenges—and delivered,” said Jon Ewing. “In just three years, his administration has reduced street homelessness to historic lows, dramatically reduced violent crime and auto theft, and stood up to Donald Trump’s attacks on Denver’s values. There is more work ahead, and Mayor Johnston will keep fighting alongside Denverites to make our city more affordable, vibrant, and full of opportunity for everyone who calls it home.”

Eight other people have filed paperwork to run, including Calderón, who has run for mayor in the two previous elections.

Re: “Trump and Peters declare America’s democracy dead,” July 12 editorial

Your recent piece on Tina Peters read less like measured journalism and more like a coordinated effort to smear a county clerk who dared question the machinery of elections — while a 70-year-old lady spent over 600 days in jail.

It began with the April 6, 2021, Mesa County municipal election. Before official results were tallied at 7 p.m., a candidate received an eerily precise victory call from her campaign manager. Not psychic hotline stuff — just enough to raise eyebrows for the clerk responsible for certifying the results. Tina Peters started asking questions. Suspicion isn’t a crime when your job is ensuring elections are verifiably trustworthy.

She was preserving federal records per her oath (Supremacy Clause). Courts rejected full immunity, but the state-federal tension remains. In 2026, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld her convictions but threw out the sentence, ruling the judge improperly punished her protected speech. A 9-0 Supreme Court precedent backs this: You can’t crank up penalties simply because someone won’t stop talking. Notably, she was never charged with breaching or destroying records. She was fulfilling preservation duties during the “Trusted Build” update.

Elections thrive on verifiable trust. Questioning the process — especially when oddities appear —shouldn’t turn someone into Public Enemy #1. The Denver Post can keep its narrative, but courts and federal complaints keep revealing real tensions worth honest debate. With transparency and scrutiny, we can strengthen trust in our elections moving forward. Brighter chapters are possible.

Brad Hackman, Lakewood

So Trump declares that mail-in ballots and voting machines are rigged so Democrats can win elections. Why hasn’t anyone confronted Trump that he doesn’t declare the same thing when Republicans win, including himself?!  And do the MAGA people not see the irony in that?!  I wonder if Tina Peters can look herself in the mirror without seeing her nose grow while continuing these lies and atrocities.

Marcia Murphy, Centennial

This is in response to the lengthy, excellent editorial on the almost completely flawless way that CO runs its election. It was very well explained.

But I am still confused as to why everyone seems to ignore the fact that in Mesa County, President Trump won 68% of the vote. How is that not critical to proving that Tina Peters is nothing but a scam artist. What was she looking for? How could that percentage be nothing but nearly total victory for Trump when we now call a 15-point victory a near landslide? She wanted to be MAGA royalty and thanks to our governor, she has now achieved it.

Judith Pettibone, Denver

The editorials published by The Post, while reliably expressing an opinion left of center, can also on occasion, reflect a strategic pragmatism.

Sunday’s offering was no such occasion.

The bloated-font headline, “Trump and Peters declare America’s democracy dead,” reeks of the leering hyperbolic headlines of social media that rarely deliver on their promise but scream anyway. Using the dense and over-the-top Trump post on his Truth Social (that’s so unlike him), re: rigged elections as a jumping-off point, The Post makes an enormous leap of faith in the headline that he declared “democracy dead”, but he did no such thing.

He didn’t then, and as far as a Google search goes, he never has. What he did was chum for outrage by saying voting machines were rigged, and you bit and delivered, big time. His attempts to undermine public confidence in elections are tired and ineffective, even to supporters like myself.

Our democracy will survive, even continue to thrive, despite who occupies the White House.

If, as you asserted, you are “exhausted” with countering these stale and benign accusations, here’s a virtuous piece of advice: stop doing that. And while you’re at it, stop mimicking the trolling websites on social media with desperate headline-hype to attract clicks. It’s beneath you.

Jon Pitt, Golden

It����ap confusing. Just last month, President Trump and many of his media supporters made (unfounded) claims of fraud and predicted the imminent collapse of the electoral system as vote counting in California stretched to days after primary Election Day and his preferred candidate for Los Angeles for mayor fell short of the final ballot. This month, I haven’t heard a peep about the fallibility of vote counting as the GOP primary election stretched to nine days and the more establishment gubernatorial candidate lost her early lead to an outsider. One might infer there was an ulterior motive in claiming fraud in the first place.

Randy Livingston, Denver

Rampant fraud did plague Colorado’s primary election, just not how Trump and Tina Peters might claim. Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office failed to get its updated election instructions posted clearly on all county election office websites. Consequently, an estimated 75% of voters were not officially informed, in a timely and non-partisan way, how to obtain and vote a Unity Party ballot. Only Republican or Democratic ballots and their instructions were automatically mailed to voters in the June primary.

Additionally, news media such as KUNC, KUSA, and the Colorado Sun, excluded Unity Party candidates from forums or voter guides where “all candidates for the same office” were required to be invited. That had the “effect of favoring…a group of candidates”, namely Democrats and Republicans, in violation of IRS or FCC regulations. So, the election was not “free and fair.” Attorney General Phil Weiser is responsible for enforcing rules to ensure “fair” elections, but he and Marx benefited from an “unfair” election.

Had voters been properly informed, the “fair” election results might have favored Kirkmeyer. That speculation is unknowable. However, claims of election fraud due to misrepresentation or omission of critical acts are easily knowable and provable. They’re neither “outlandish claims” nor “isolated incidents”.

Should Weiser and Griswold be disqualified? Should the election be nullified and run again – legally and fairly? Do violating news outlets need to lose their tax-exempt status or FCC licenses? Colorado’s “gold standard” election integrity is at stake. The primary election needs an unbiased investigation and accountability.

Jeff Peckman, Englewood

Time to re-evaluate the wolf reintroduction

Re: “On the front lines,” July 12 news story

Having read many articles regarding the wolf reintroduction program in Colorado, I am wondering if this program is producing any positive results. It seems that millions of dollars are being spent on hiring 18 range riders, compensating ranchers and farmers for their loss of livestock and herding dogs, as well as the cost of obtaining and tracking wolves.

Now, after so many years since the initial reintroduction program began, have we as taxpayers and interested parties gained any real advantages from this program? It seems to me that the problems encountered have overwhelmed any potential advantages. Also, why doesn’t Colorado Parks and Wildlife conduct a study to evaluate this program? All concerned, taxpayers, supporters, opponents and government officials need to know if this program is worth all the effort that has been put into it.

James Sebben, Minturn

I read with dismay the numerous articles commenting on the hardship ranchers must endure because of the introduction of wolves to Colorado. The default position in all of these articles is that ranchers have more rights than other people, in that they must be compensated for losses due to predation.

It would be useful to augment this point of view by exploring the premise that cattle ranching is a good thing and must be protected. To me, it is the same as dog meat farming, at one time prevalent in Asian countries.  There is fundamentally no difference between farming dogs for meat and raising cattle.  The only cultural difference is that Western cultures revere dogs but consider cattle a meal in waiting.

Just as dog meat farmers are abandoning their former way of making a living and developing new livelihoods, the same can happen to cattle ranchers.  I find their practices equally abhorrent and unworthy of protection.

Claire Moulden, Thornton

No to gerrymandering, but Colorado is a long way from competitive districts

Re: “Colorado Supreme Court just saved us the shame of making a mistake the size of Texas or California,” July 12 opinion column

I agree with Krista Kafer when she says in her Sunday op-ed that Coloradans should leave the process of redistricting to the newly created Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission.

But I don’t agree that their actions thus far have been true to their mission. The wording is clear enough. “The 12-member bipartisan commission is obligated by the state Constitution to maximize the number of competitive districts and may not protect a political party or an incumbent.” But then, as Krista states, “The Commission created four Democratic-majority seats, three Republican-majority seats, and one competitive district.” That����ap right. One competitive district. How is that “maximizing the number of competitive districts?

Colorado’s congressional districts are not competitive. They generally still favor candidates from one party over another. Just look at the data from the 2024 election. While Gabe Evans, a Republican, won Congressional District 8 by just about 2,500 votes and Jeff Hurd, also a Republican, won Congressional District 3 by just about 19,800 votes, the rest of our districts clearly favored one party over another.

Jeff Crank, a Republican, won Congressional District 5 by 50,000 votes. Lauren Boebert, a Republican, won District 4 by 52,000 votes. Brittany Petterson, a Democrat, won District 7 by 60,000 votes. Jason Crow, a Democrat, won District 6 by 70,000 votes. Joe Neguse, a Democrat, won District 2 by 164,000 votes. And the venerable Diana DeGette, a Democrat, won District 1 by 190,000 votes!

Based on the data, the State of Colorado cannot say that it����ap done a good job of making our congressional elections more competitive because they have not. There is a lot more work to do.

Mike Dubrovich, Parker

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That is roughly how much was spent on all of Colorado’s competitive primaries for statewide and federal office — and almost all of it went to influence Democrat-vs.-Democrat contests as voters picked who would represent the party in November’s election, according to an analysis by The Denver Post. Millions more went to down-ballot races, such as local legislative races.

The rain from the proverbial storm of cash poured down in the form of candidate mailers, door knockers, and TV and digital ads, and in less apparent campaign infrastructure and polls. The vast majority of the money went directly to campaigns and supported direct messaging, staffing and other expenses of running for office.

But more than a third — almost $25 million — flooded the races through super PACs and other outside groups that approach politics with different levels of opacity.

The money also didn’t do much to predict eventual winners. Four of the most-monied candidates seeking statewide or federal offices won their primaries. Four others lost.

Paul Teske, a political scientist at the University of Colorado Denver, said it can be tough to tease out how much of a difference money can make in a campaign, especially if spending between candidates is in the same ballpark. But the amount this time also seems striking, even if there isn’t an immediate apples-to-apples comparison to prior election years.

“People realize this is a way to influence policy that can be effective — if it’s the right place, at the right time, in the right way,” Teske said.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appears to have been the single largest player in Colorado politics in the June 30 primaries. The billionaire pumped $5 million in cash into a state super PAC backing U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet����ap failed bid for governor against Attorney General Phil Weiser. Weiser ended up winning the race by more than 13 percentage points.

The race for the Democratic nomination for governor by far outstripped every other race in the primaries, with more than $24.5 million spent by either the super PACs backing the candidates or by the campaigns themselves.

That money was almost evenly split between the super PACs and the campaigns, though that number is skewed by the super PAC backing Bennet, Rocky Mountain Way. That political action committee spent nearly $11 million, almost twice as much as Bennet����ap official campaign spent.

The Republican side of the governor’s race saw a relatively paltry $4.1 million spent through June 29, the cutoff for the most recent batch of campaign data. Nonprofit leader Victor Marx, who had more than $3.2 million of that money backing him either directly or through a state super PAC, narrowly secured the nomination Thursday over state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer and third-place state Rep. Scott Bottoms.

On the federal side of the ledger, the money becomes even more opaque — though there was less of it. Campaigns’ federal reports cover fundraising and spending through June 10, though outside groups had to file more frequent spending reports in the lead-up to the election.

State Rep. Manny Rutinel benefited from the most outside money, $5.5 million, in his successful campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 8th Congressional District. By comparison, Shannon Bird, the former state representative who lost to Rutinel, saw $1.7 million spent to buoy her.

More than $3 million of outside help for Rutinel came from the Latino Victory Fund and the associated Latino Victory Project. Those groups have received money from Opportunity Forward Alliance, a dark-money group that describes itself as backing business-friendly policies, and 5000 Broadway Productions, the production company founded by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

He also benefited from almost $1 million spent by You Can Push Back, a super PAC supported by . And $1.2 million backing Rutinel’s campaign came from the SOMOS PAC, a super PAC that was backed by the nonprofit Advocacy Action Fund. That nonprofit has been linked and has a history of giving to self-styled progressive and abortion-rights advocacy groups.

That 8th District race — expected to be one of the most competitive in the nation, again — will almost certainly draw a gob-smacking amount of money and attention as the November general election nears. In 2024, the candidates and outside groups spent more than $40 million on the election that saw U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a Republican, win the seat. It was among in the country and is seen this time as key to whichever party will hold the House majority next year.

Now Evans is running for reelection in the 8th District, which stretches from the north Denver suburbs to Greeley.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, who was on the wrong side of the primary night’s biggest upset in Colorado, was the second-largest beneficiary of outside money, largely as part of a last-minute surge to preserve her office. More than $2.3 million flew into that race to defend DeGette, whose 1st Congressional District mostly covers Denver.

Of that, more than $1.5 million came from the Pro-Choice Majority Action PAC, which in turn receives money from the EDW Action Fund, a pro-Democratic women’s group that is , or AIPAC.

By comparison, now-Democratic nominee Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist who beat DeGette by 13.4 percentage points, had just over $500,000 in outside spending support her campaign against the 30-year incumbent. Kiros’ campaign also spent less than $600,000 directly, or less than half of DeGette’s total campaign spending.

Shimon Blau, a pain management physician and Israel supporter, on Thursday turned in signatures required to get on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate — and he did so just an hour before the deadline after a rush to collect signatures this week.

“Dr. Blau turned in petitions at 4 p.m.,” Colorado Secretary of State’s Office spokesman Jack Todd said Thursday. “I cannot speak to how many signatures Dr. Blau turned in, or whether his petition submission will ultimately be deemed sufficient or insufficient.”

Blau must submit 1,500 valid voter signatures from the 1st Congressional District, which for the most part covers Denver, to make the November ballot. Election officials have until July 30 to review petitions for unaffiliated candidates, Todd said.

Kiros, who defeated the 15-term DeGette in the June 30 primary, also faces Republican Christy Peterson, who according to Federal Election Commission records had raised no money for the race through the end of March. She didn’t file a more recent campaign finance report.

Blau, who is Jewish, launched his long-shot congressional bid on Sunday, that he was “saddened and alarmed” by Kiros’ victory a few days earlier.

Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist, has been criticized for comments she made about 9/11, Israel’s legitimacy as a nation, and the deadly firebombing attack on Jews and others demonstrating in Boulder last year — an act she refused to call antisemitic.

“I am particularly concerned by what I view as Ms. Kiros’s anti-Semitic rhetoric and her refusal to meet with leaders of Denver’s Jewish community to address their concerns,” Blau wrote in his launch announcement.

Both Blau and Peterson may face a tough time trying to beat Kiros this fall, given Denver’s heavily Democratic skew.