Gas prices are once again on the rise a month after the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, resulting in a severe crimp in the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. And fingers are once again pointing at the party occupying the White House, now led by President Donald Trump.

But this time, the blame game has taken on a distinctly more digital and targeted approach as November’s midterm elections come into view.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last week an ad campaign targeting Republican incumbents it believes are vulnerable in 44 congressional districts, including U.S. Reps. Jeff Crank in the Colorado Springs-based 5th District and Gabe Evans in the 8th District north of Denver.

The ultrashort six-second video ad with the words “D.C. Republicans Did That!” It’s being “geo-targeted” to people’s Facebook and Instagram feeds when they come within close range of select gas stations in either district.

“Now, when voters fill up at the pump, they’ll have yet another reminder that D.C. Republicans are squarely to blame for the price of gas, and everything else, being too damn high,” DCCC spokeswoman Courtney Rice said.

It’s no surprise that Democrats are taking advantage of elevated prices at the pump to gain political advantage, said Jon Krosnick, a political science professor at Stanford University. He co-authored a 2016 study titled which found that a 10-cent increase led to a 0.6-percentage-point drop in support.

The price for regular unleaded fuel in Colorado sat at an average a day before the war started in late February, according to AAA. On Friday, it averaged  — an increase of just over $1 from a month ago.

While November’s election is not a presidential one, Krosnick said there will very likely be crossover in terms of dissatisfaction toward the party in charge of Congress.

“Every Republican running for office should be worried about gas prices going up,” he said.

Gas prices play an outsized role in how people gauge the severity of inflation at any given moment, Krosnick said. On nearly every corner of major thoroughfares throughout the country, giant lighted signs display the price of petrol.

“There’s no other consumer good that is as advertised to consumers like gasoline,” Krosnick said. “Not everybody in the family may be filling up the car, but everyone is driving past gas stations every day.”

Though gas prices were appreciably higher under the Biden administration following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine — reaching a peak of $4.87 per gallon of regular-grade gasoline in Colorado in June of that year, according to — Krosnick said voters care about what’s going on now.

“It’s a present-focused decision,” he said.

A ‘mitigating factor’ in the 8th District?

That was the case for Michael Kondur, a handyman who was filling up his truck last week at a Valero station at West 88th Avenue and Pecos Street in Thornton, in Evans’ congressional district. The price there was a comparatively forgiving $3.69 per gallon for regular.

“It’s the first time I’ve had a full tank in three weeks — and it will be gone in three days,” he said, also using choice words to describe Trump and Republicans in general. “I run my own business with this truck and I don’t have food on my table. Any Republican has got to go.”

Across the street at a Maverik station, where the price for a gallon of gas was nearly 10 cents higher, Carolyn McDowell said she was able to part with only $30 to fill her Chevy Silverado’s tank halfway. Her husband, who works for the delivery service DoorDash, is taking a real hit.

“It’s impacting his ability to make money,” she said.

McDowell said she’s against war in Iran, a stance that is in line with 61% of Americans who also disapprove of the conflict, according to a conducted between March 16 and March 22. The poll also found that 45% of respondents felt the military action was not going well, while 25% felt it was going extremely or very well.

Former Colorado GOP Chair Dick Wadhams, who has run his share of political campaigns, said there is no doubt that gas prices pose a problem for Evans, who’s seeking reelection in Colorado’s most politically competitive district, and Crank, who won comfortably in 2024 but is being targeted by Democrats more aggressively this year.

“The price of gas as it relates to inflation and the cost of living was a big part of Trump beating Harris in 2024,” he said of Trump’s defeat of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. “Democrats will try to make (gas prices) an issue right through November — there’s no doubt about it. The Republicans are in a vulnerable position.”

But there is a “mitigating factor,” Wadhams said, that Evans should be able to use to fight back in the 8th District — which covers a large chunk of Weld County, home to Colorado’s most productive oil and gas field.

“Gabe has a good argument against Democrats that they want to kill the oil and gas industry,” he said.

Two years ago, Democrats in the state legislature floated a bill that aimed to halt the issuance of new oil and gas permits by the end of 2029, a proposal that raised hackles in the industry. Lawmakers eventually .

In December, Republican state lawmakers attacked the Public Utilities Commission’s approval of a “clean heat” plan requiring Colorado’s larger utilities that supply natural gas to homes and businesses to substantially lower emissions over the next decade. The plan, they asserted, amounts to a mandate that forces families to buy “costly heat pumps, retrofits and electric appliances” to switch from gas to electricity.

This month, the influential environmental group Conservation Colorado filed ballot measures with the state elections office that would slap stricter penalties on the energy industry for the pollution and contamination that result from its operations.

In a , the group said it filed the measures to filed by the conservative political action committee Advance Colorado that would enshrine in the state constitution the right of producers to sell natural gas in the state and the right of consumers to use the energy source in their homes and businesses.

A spokeswoman for Evans’ campaign who declined to give her name called the Democrats’ stance on gas prices “hypocritical” in a statement.

“For years, they have pushed radical climate policies and overregulation, banning natural gas for residential heating, eliminating jobs for hardworking families, and handcuffing the very oil and gas workers who ensure reliable and affordable resources for Coloradans,” her statement read. “Now they expect us to believe they care about gas prices?”

Potentially bleak forecast

Republicans don’t just have gas prices to worry about — diesel prices are even worse.

Where a gallon of diesel fuel came in at $3.52 a month ago, , on Friday it hit $4.94.

Twenty percent to 25% of the operating cost for a long-haul trucker is fuel, said Greg Fulton, the president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, which represents more than 500 trucking companies in the state.

“This has come at a very difficult time for the industry,” he said of the spike in energy prices. “This is a situation where profit margins are very thin already.”

During the last peak in oil prices in 2022, Fulton said, some of that sticker shock was offset by the fact that more freight was on the road because consumers were buying more goods to accommodate new stay-at-home lifestyles set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic.

“They were able to pass along the increases easier,” Fulton said of his industry.

Trump’s widespread tariffs have made things even more constrained for trucking companies when it comes to trying to keep operating expenses down these days, he said.

“Hopefully this is more of a short-term situation,” he said.

While Iran last week , oil transport through the vital waterway was still badly hobbled by the war. Al Salazar, the director of research at oil and gas analysis firm Enverus, said the longer the strait was choked, the longer gas prices would stay high.

If the Strait of Hormuz were to remain largely closed through the end of May, Enverus projected that Brent crude prices would stay around $95 a barrel through this year and edge up to $100 a barrel in 2027. That’s because it would take time to replenish all the tanks and oil-holding facilities that are being tapped now, Salazar said.

“By the time the flow is fixed, your stocks (of oil) have all drawn down and you’re left at alarmingly low levels,” he said.

We don’t just need the rate of increase to ease, or even to stop; we need a full reversal, a reduction in single-family home and multi-family home property taxes.

For more than a decade, property taxes have increased unabated, driven by tax increases, new districts and mostly by the rising value of homes. Now homeowners are feeling the pinch – property tax increases that have outstripped even America’s brutal inflation rate this past decade.

Property taxes in Colorado primarily fund schools, counties, cities, water, fire protection, and debt from developer spending.

How much a property owner pays is based on a complex formula that considers three things: the local tax rates (known as mill levies), the state-wide assessment rate and the assessed value of the property.

While mill levies have increased and the state has tinkered up and down with the rate, it is property assessed-value increases that .

For an average-priced home purchased for $500,000 in the City and County of Denver, property taxes in some areas of the city have increased from $1,800 in 2020 to $4,400 in 2026. Taxpayers did approve a mill levy override for Denver Public Schools in 2020, but since then, they have not approved a single measure that would increase mill levies – the increase has been driven entirely by the unrealized gains of property values. Denver has one of the lowest mill levy tax rates in the Front Range.

Property tax relief could come to Coloradans in several forms in the coming years.

Starting in 2027, taxpayers will receive some relief with the imposition of a tax break already approved by state lawmakers. Homeowners will see a graduated 10% decrease in their assessed value up to $700,000 in value. These tax cuts approved by the Colorado legislature will help tremendously.

Also, Colorado seniors can finally keep their homestead tax exemption if they move homes, something that prevented many older Coloradans from downsizing and punished retirees who had to move because of a disability.

Additionally, Colorado lawmakers imposed a cap on property tax revenue increases for governments – 6% for school districts in a single year, and 5.25% for local governments and special districts.

Until property values finally begin to decline in Colorado to reasonable and affordable levels, local jurisdictions must serve their taxpayers by doing more. Nothing prohibits a city, county, school district or metro district from reducing the mill levy even beyond the 6% cap. These governments must recognize that their revenue has grown unsustainably over the past decade and take measures to provide relief.

Localized property tax reductions are also the only way forward because not every municipality or metro district has seen the crushing weight of property inflation. Governments can look at their revenue gains over the past decade, look hard at their expenditures and reserves and consider offering temporary mill levy reductions until home values decrease.

A 6% growth in revenue for a city, county or school district is not troubling in any one single year, but 6% growth on top of the already mounting valuations will have dire results for many Coloradans.

We all must reach out to our local elected officials or the developers of our subdivisions and tell them how property taxes are impacting our budgets. Developers can refinance or recast debt, new projects can be delayed, and school districts can hold off on asking for renewals of bond debt, freeing up mill levies in this dire economic time.

Colorado voters willingly gave up protections from property tax inflation in 2020 when we agreed that the Gallagher Amendment was hurting our local businesses. Now, our local elected officials and developers must return the favor and protect homeowners from this financial crush.

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The zoning changes were designed to encourage construction of denser housing in Colorado’s fifth-largest city. Ballots for the April 7 special election, which , will be sent to voters starting Monday as Lakewood plays host to the latest Colorado battle over housing density.

The issue committee Make Lakewood Livable — which supports keeping Lakewood’s rezoning ordinances — has pulled in since the start of the year, while three committees urging voters to scrap the zoning changes have raised just under $40,000, according to reports filed by March 9.

The pro-rezoning side has pulled down big-dollar contributions from developers — $10,000 from Cardel Homes and $50,000 from Boulder-based Conscience Bay — while its top donor is Action Now Initiative. The Houston-based nonprofit advocacy organization, which is a part of gave Make Lakewood Livable $75,000.

Arnold Ventures was launched by John Arnold, a former Enron executive and hedge fund manager who previously spent in support of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s election and a 2024 Denver affordable housing sales tax proposal that was narrowly rejected by voters.

The top contribution on the side attempting to repeal Lakewood’s rezoning was $2,500.

“Ours is a true grassroots campaign,” said Karin Schantz, who supports undoing the zoning changes that she feels threaten rural neighborhoods like hers. “I chose my neighborhood because I wanted to be in the agricultural part of the city.”

Schantz, who has kept horses, chickens and goats on her tree-shaded Morse Park property over the nearly 20 years she has lived there, worries that Lakewood’s rezoning will allow “cluster homes” and other higher-density housing types to take root next to her half-acre property.

“It was a blanket rezoning of all of Lakewood,” said Schantz, who established the issue committee Imagine Lakewood to combat the rezoning. “And it’s really affecting the historic older neighborhoods.”

Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, a former Lakewood City Council member who now serves as campaign manager for Make Lakewood Livable, said the city spent more than two years — across 30 public meetings — hammering out the zoning changes.

The new code allows diverse housing stock anywhere in the city, limits new home sizes to 5,000 square feet, and encourages the conversion of vacant or underused commercial buildings to housing. Some of the housing types pushed by rezoning advocates are duplexes, triplexes and accessory dwelling units that come with less square footage but provide more dwelling units per acre than traditional standalone homes.

“The zoning code is designed to foster the type of housing that is built for the missing middle,” Mayott-Guerrero said, referring to types of residential buildings that can accommodate multiple families but aren’t as big as an apartment building. “The idea that we can keep structuring our housing in the same way and get a different result doesn’t make sense to me.”

Home prices in metro Denver have been a problem, especially for working-class people and young families, for years. Last month, the median price of a single-family home came in at $630,000, a 2.4% increase from the price in January.

But signs of relief for homebuyers have popped up in the last couple of years, with a recent report from First American Data & Analytics finding that the Denver region recorded the biggest drop in starter home prices over the past year of any major metropolitan area.

The battle over affordable housing runs deep in Colorado, with the state mandating higher density in recent years and, in turn, being sued by cities that claim the legislation treads on their home-rule authority. Last fall, Littleton voters passed a measure that better protects single-family home neighborhoods from multifamily housing projects.

Dissatisfied Lakewood residents collected more than 10,000 signatures last fall in a challenge to the council’s rezoning ordinances. In January, the council voted to send the four questions to next month’s special election.

Zach Martinez, the director of policy and advocacy at Gary Advocacy, says Lakewood’s rezoning ordinances are exactly what Colorado cities need to pass to make life more affordable for residents.

“The two things that are most costly for families are housing and child care,” he said. “The general approach in Lakewood is good because it allows people to build more housing on smaller pieces of land.”

Gary Advocacy is the policy arm of the philanthropic organization Gary Community Ventures, which was once headed by Johnston. The organization gave $25,000 to Make Lakewood Livable.

“People need affordable homes and that’s our priority,” Martinez said.

Charlie Anderson, the executive vice president of infrastructure for Arnold Ventures, echoed that sentiment in a statement.

“A lack of housing supply, particularly starter homes, has led to an affordability crisis for Coloradans,” he wrote. “Arnold Ventures has provided grants to support efforts in Colorado and across the country, including work in Lakewood, to build homes faster, better, and at lower cost, making housing more affordable for families and workers.”

Make Lakewood Livable is supported by a , including Housing Forward Colorado and Metro West Housing Solutions. It also has the backing of the Jefferson County commissioners and U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen and former U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter.

But the , the issue committee that has raised the most money on the repeal side, takes pride in not having big backing from “national or state advocacy groups parachuting into local issues.” It describes its campaign as one “started by local residents.”

Cathy Kentner, who heads up Lakewood for All — another group supporting the repeal effort — said the city’s rezoning initiative would do little to bring down home prices. It leaves too much power in the hands of developers to build what pencils out best for them, rather than focusing on building an affordable product, she said.

“This new zoning is likely to reduce homeownership opportunities because it allows an investor to replace a single-family home with a multiplex,” she said. “A ‘no’ vote benefits corporations and the wealthy elite, and a ‘yes’ vote is for the people.”

The disabled veteran, who tracks his expenses like a hawk, also faced a $200 jump in his property insurance premiums. Some people may not bat an eye, but on his fixed income, the added costs have become a major source of stress.

“I’m 94 years old and only have so much saved. The faster it’s spent, the sooner I end up on the street or worse, in a nursing home,” he lamented.

Kratz is among the homeowners in the state who were hit with an unexpected and substantial rise in their property taxes, even though their actual home values were flat or even down compared to last year. The increases are primarily linked to the elimination of a temporary $55,000 discount in property values that ended last year. Losing that discount was more impactful for lower-value homes and condos.

Others have faced higher mill levies from local governments and school districts, which added to their bills. And some people continue to see their home values rise even as prices fall elsewhere.

“We are getting the phone calls, and we are happy to take them,” said Elbert County Assessor Susan Murphy, who is also the president of the Colorado Assessors’ Association. “People aren’t always happy, but they are pretty understanding once you can go through the calculation with them.”

Assessors are responsible for determining property values, not for setting the actual property taxes people pay. But county assessors’ offices are often the first place people turn when they struggle to understand the math behind their property tax bills, she said.

In Montezuma County, Richard Vogel, who lives just outside of Cortez, is among those who struggle with the math. He was hit with a 41% increase in his tax bill, despite the value of his home and land holding steady. His increase was mostly due to voter-approved mill levy increases for the area school district and fire department, driven in part by reduced support from the state, which is facing reduced federal support and large budget shortfalls.

“I don’t have an objection to a small jump,” said Vogel. But he questions why such large increases are allowed to be passed on in a single year, before asking:  “Is there an end in sight?”

In the last assessment cycle, residential values, averaged across all of Denver County, were flat. In Adams County, they were down. But some gentrifying neighborhoods continue to see home values appreciate as older and smaller homes are demolished and replaced with significantly larger and more expensive structures.

Kelly Duff, who retired early as a music teacher because of a disability and gets by on $1,100 a month, has lived in the Mayfair neighborhood since 1998. Her bungalow, built in 1994, is snug at 722 square feet and has a gravel driveway and no garage. Duff, however, is now searching for options that will allow her to stay in her home.

Her home valuation last year was set at $563,000 by the Denver assessor, up from $485,000 two years earlier. Add the elimination of the $55,000 reduction against residential property values last year, and her property taxes have gone up from $2,200 a year to just over $3,000, she said. Her property insurance premiums have also shot up to $2,800 a year.

Duff blames the three “McMansions” that have risen around her since the pandemic — one on each side and a third across the street. It wasn’t bad enough that they cut off her sunlight; the trio also jacked up her property taxes, she said.

Zillow shows that a home on one side of Duff has gone from a market value of $496,000 to $1.8 million after it was replaced, while on the other side, the value rose from $270,000 to $1.66 million. The one across the street went from a scrape value of $597,000 to nearly $2 million.

The replacement homes on all three lots represented significant expansions, but the original price paid for the scraped homes mostly reflected the value of the land. Zillow values Duff’s home at $416,000, which is down from a peak of $523,800 in early 2022, when the Denver real estate market topped out.

Duff purchased the home for $131,600 in late 1998. Public records show her property taxes were $804 in 2002, not long after Duff purchased the home for $131,600. If Zillow is correct in its valuation, Duff’s property taxes have risen 3.7-fold, while the value of the home has risen 3.5-fold. What isn’t known is what her home would have been worth if her neighboring lots hadn’t been scraped.

Duff now has the upside of more home equity, but can’t claim it easily. If she sold, she doesn’t know what else she could afford in Denver. In a world that feels increasingly like what the character , she plans to turn to a reverse mortgage to stay afloat.

Colorado offers a program for seniors and active military, which allows a portion of taxes to be converted into a low-interest-rate loan payable upon the death of the homeowner or the sale or transfer of the home. Denver also for low-income residents who are either age 65 or older, disabled, or who have a dependent child in the household.

Unlike the changes in total residential values, which assessors calculate every two years and make public, finding aggregated numbers on what property taxes are levied per home is tougher.

“The state does not collect data at the property-specific level, so we are not able to show how many residential property owners are facing a higher property tax payment this year compared to last,” said Keith Erffmeyer, the state’s new Property Tax Administrator, in an email.

Absent a centralized database, discerning trends by geography or property type is hard. Given that the $55,000 discount on home values was a flat rate, owners of lower-cost properties, such as Kratz and Duff, are likely facing a bigger upward adjustment in their 2025 property taxes, which are due on April 30.

Developers have shifted a higher share of infrastructure and other costs into metro districts. Newer communities are also more likely to require new schools. Because more costs are wrapped into the property tax base in newer communities, homeowners there are also likely to face a bigger tax hit.

The Denver Post asked readers if they had seen higher property taxes this year, and nearly 100 responded. A large share of those who reached out were retirees and others on a fixed income who said they were struggling to absorb the increases.

What upset some was that they had counted on flat home values and the legislative fixes made in 2023 and 2024 to shield them from any more big spikes.

One reason that hasn’t been the case is that 2025 represented a “gap” year where old benefits disappeared before new ones could catch up. The flat $55,000 reduction applied against total home values in 2023 and 2024 is being replaced this year by a graduated 10% decrease up to $700,000 in value.

To ease the transition in 2025, the residential assessment rate for local governments was lowered from 6.7% to 6.25%. The school district assessment rate fell from 7.15% in 2024 to 7.05% in 2025. That is what is showing up in the tax bills that went out this year.

The residential assessment rate is the share of the total value of a home that is subject to local mill levies, which represent $1 in tax for every $1,000 in assessed value. Mill levies are the tax rates that local governments, school districts and special districts charge. They are highly localized.

School districts receive half or more of property taxes in most areas. Because the drop in the residential assessment rate for school districts was so small, it wasn’t enough to compensate for the loss of the $55,000 discount, especially among lower-cost properties, which are more likely to be occupied by lower-income residents less able to absorb any big tax increases.

Caps that limit property tax revenue increases in any given year to 5.25% for local governments and 6% for school districts also kick in this year. But the caps don’t apply to home rule cities, voter-approved bonds, or in jurisdictions where voters have approved waivers on limits. And even when they are applied, it doesn’t mean that individual property tax bills can’t rise faster than the caps imposed on local governments.

That said, residential property owners should see significantly smaller property tax increases next year than this year, said Chris deGruy Kennedy, president and CEO of the Bell Policy Center, a progressive policy group based in Denver.

Kennedy was in the thick of the negotiations to address the spike in property taxes that followed an unprecedented surge in home values during the pandemic.

“We couldn’t figure out a way to keep K-12 funding where they needed it to be,” he said. “There was a decision that we needed to sever the school district assessment rate from the local government assessment rate.”

Kennedy, as former pro tem Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, was a key architect behind Proposition HH, which provided a $40,000 property value reduction and attempted to use TABOR surplus funds to backfill local government funding shortfalls.

When voters rejected that, he guided a special session that approved the $55,000 value reduction, which was intended as a temporary fix.

In 2024, as a legislative member of the Commission on Property Tax, he spent weeks working on a more permanent solution. The only way to give homeowners relief while also protecting constitutional requirements for school funding was to create different assessment rates.

By splitting, the state could lower local taxes without draining the school funding protected under Amendment 23, which voters passed in 2020. The amendment obligated the state to keep school funding in line with inflation, even when local voters rejected the higher mill levies needed to make that happen. That obligation was chronically underfunded, which forced the state to divert revenues from other priorities. During the Great Recession, when there simply wasn’t enough money left in the budget, the state ran up a tab called the “negative factor,” which was later named the “budget stabilization factor.” That gap triggered lawsuits and finally eliminated in 2024.

When property values rose sharply, it offered a window to shift more of the local funding burden back onto homeowners, who had just lost a shield known as the Gallagher Amendment. Passed in 1983, that measure required residential property owners to cover 45% of the statewide property tax burden, and commercial property owners the remainder.

But because home price gains consistently outpaced the gains in commercial properties, the residential assessment rate, or the share of total property values subject to mill levies, continued to ratchet down, going from 21% to 7.15% when voters finally approved a repeal in 2020.

Businesses found themselves shouldering a heavier property tax burden, and rural areas, with smaller home price gains and a smaller commercial property tax base, struggled to keep pace. Homeowners were promised a more comprehensive fix of the property tax system and the repeal passed with a comfortable margin.

But reforms didn’t happen in time, and the delays proved costly. A sharp drop in interest rates to combat the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed a buying frenzy and an unprecedented surge in home prices, which in turn caused property taxes to spike once assessments caught up to the market gains.

Colorado ranks 48th lowest for its effective residential property tax rates in the country, due in large part to Gallagher, according to the . Other surveys put it at around the fourth lowest. But Colorado also has the highest average home prices outside of any coastal state. That results in a heavier per capita property tax burden, which ranks 26th or near the national average.

For homeowners on a fixed income or struggling to stay in a home due to low wages, the question isn’t where Colorado ranks for its effective property tax rate but whether they will have enough added income to cover higher monthly escrow payments or to meet their property tax obligation on April 30 without borrowing.

“This is an added stressor with healthcare, student loans, inflation. It is making it difficult to pay for things despite working two jobs,” said Frederick resident Lauren Carson.

“We are by no means in hardship, but all of the salary raises are canceled out by these increased expenses, so our savings are not growing as much as they should,” said Andy Heinz, a Denver resident who was hit with a $520 increase in property taxes this year.

Beyond higher property taxes, Colorado homeowners have seen homeowner insurance premiums double between 2020 and 2025, the biggest percentage increase of any state, . Colorado homeowners rank 14th for the share of their incomes that is required to cover property insurance premiums.

“No one is getting pay increases at the same pace as insurance and taxes are going up,” said Corey Morris, a Castle Rock resident. Morris said his property taxes are up $1,000 compared to last year and his insurance costs are up “substantially” the past two years.

Some taxpayers who responded said they have reduced their insurance coverage to afford higher property taxes, while others said they are deferring needed maintenance. Neither bodes well for the health of the state’s housing stock over the long term.

Kennedy said a growing share of the state’s population, not just the poor, struggles with higher living costs, of which higher housing costs play a big part. Critics have long argued that changes in property values, in either direction, don’t correlate with the cost of services and the financial needs of local governments.

The Bell Policy Center is leading a coalition to put a proposal on that ballot that would levy a higher income tax rate on households earning $500,000 or more a year. Kennedy argues that a graduated income tax would provide a more calibrated revenue tool than property taxes. And it could address equity concerns that pop up in wealthy enclaves like Steamboat Springs, where the rejection of higher local taxes has forced the state to step in and cover shortfalls.

Supporters also argue that a graduated income tax would help cover the funding gap resulting from the reduction in federal support.

But as with any tax change, it is controversial. Even those who said they could absorb the financial hit from higher property taxes expressed concerns about how tax revenues are spent and whether policymakers and government leaders understand the burden that higher taxes create for residents.

Louie Bucher, a resident of Washington Park West, said he wished Colorado had a California-style Proposition 13, which caps changes in the assessed value of a residential property that can be taxed. He can absorb the hit, but he wants more accountability.

“My biggest peeve is seeing what they spend the money on,” said Bucher, who used to live in the Golden State. “If the money is being spent responsibly, then it is a little bit easier to take. But then you see that the money is being wasted.”

Denver’s auditor Tim O’Brien, for example, found that the Caring for Denver Foundation, which receives a dedicated portion of the city’s sales and use tax to work on suicide prevention and assist those struggling with substance use problems, spent $28,000 on meals and $3,000 on expensive alcoholic drinks over three years.

While that program isn’t reliant on property taxes, Bucher said it reflects an ethos in the public sector where “it is a lot easier to spend other people’s money than your own.”

Some respondents, like Jake Cohen of Denver, try to keep the property tax hikes in a positive light by focusing on the good that the extra revenues will achieve. The cost increases that households are experiencing are also hitting governments and schools.

“It’s tough, but it’s important to me to contribute to Denver schools and new transportation projects like making streets safer; they all deliver value to me and are part of making Denver better. And those costs are going up too,” Cohen said.

The residential assessment ratio for schools and local governments is expected to go back up, but the precise rate won’t be known until November. It will be largely offset by the 10% reduction in total value applied. On average, property tax bills should stabilize next year in most areas, assuming home values don’t rise sharply before mid-year.

Kennedy did a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation for a typical home in Jefferson County, where he lives. If property taxes went up $300 this year, the property tax increase next year will likely be closer to around $30, he predicts.

In another change, seniors who move can now carry their homestead exemption with them to a new primary residence. That exemption provided a 50% discount on the first $200,000 of a home’s actual value, provided someone over 65 had lived in the home for 10 years or more. That exemption used to end when a senior moved, but it has been made portable, including for recent moves.

Fear of losing that exemption froze older homeowners who might have wanted to downsize in place, tying up larger homes that could benefit younger families, critics argued.

The deadline to apply for the “” is March 15, but applications are being accepted through July 15, although the right to appeal a rejection of an application goes away for those filing after the initial deadline. The benefits of the broadened exemption will show up in next year’s property tax bill for those who qualify.

United Food & Commercial Workers Local 7, the union representing 3,800 JBS laborers, announced Monday that its bargaining committee has met more than two dozen times with the company, but has been unable to reach a contract.

Recent talks have led nowhere, union officials said in a news release, sending workers a “clear message that the company is putting profits ahead of its people.”

“JBS workers absolutely deserve wage increases that keep pace with inflation, that support their health, that protect their retirement, and that allow the workers to work with dignity and respect,” the union said.

JBS, in a statement Monday, said it stands by the company’s offer, calling it “strong, fair and consistent” with a national contract reached last year with UFCW.

The company said it would ensure work for people who want to cross the picket line, but it also plans to temporarily shift production to other facilities to prevent disruptions.

“We do not believe a strike is in the best interest of our team members or their families,” JBS officials said.

Ninety-nine percent of unionized members in Greeley voted last month to authorize the strike.

Local 7 officials allege JBS has threatened to withhold a proposed bonus and pension payment if workers strike, and has retaliated against workers standing up for their rights. The meatpacking giant has proposed wage increases of less than 2% per year on average — not nearly enough to keep up with rising costs, the union says.

“The goal of negotiations is never to go on strike, but when the company violates workers’ rights and ignores workers’ concerns about safety and health, the company give(s) workers no choice but to stand together in solidarity and show the company that they cannot be silenced,” UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova said in the news release.

Workers told The Denver Post last month that they frequently get injured on the job and do not receive adequate medical care from the on-site clinic.

Line speeds on the assembly floor are so fast, they said, that it’s impossible to do their work in a way that’s safe and healthy.

JBS USA, headquartered in Greeley, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Brazil-based JBS S.A., the world’s largest processor of beef and pork, with more than $50 billion in annual sales.

The company operates nine U.S. facilities, selling beef products to more than 44 countries on six continents. It employs more than 37,000 people at these plants, including nearly 4,000 workers at the Greeley location.

The meatpacking giant has also been in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators for years, along with myriad allegations from its employees over poor or unsafe working conditions.

Calls for universities and colleges to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees have grown steadily louder. Now institutions are answering those calls, and those that do not evolve and innovate risk becoming increasingly disconnected from both students and employers. Rather than defending the status quo, college and university leaders should treat accelerated bachelor’s degrees as an innovative offering that preserves academic rigor, aligns with workforce needs and improves access and affordability.

While some current political debate casts doubt about the value of higher education, research consistently shows that a bachelor’s degree remains one of the strongest predictors of long-term economic mobility. Bachelor’s degree holders earn a median of $32,000 more each year than high school graduates, amounting to roughly $625,000 in additional lifetime earnings.

Those figures even account for time spent out of the workforce during college. During economic downturns, unemployment rates for high school graduates are roughly double what they are for college graduates, and degree holders are more likely to have health insurance, retirement savings, stronger health outcomes and higher levels of civic engagement.

While the long-term benefits are clear, the traditional path to obtaining the degree has come under increasing scrutiny. Over the last 30 years, the average tuition for both public and private four-year colleges has essentially doubled after adjusting for inflation. As tuition and fees have risen, institutions face tough questions about time to completion and return on investment. For many Americans, particularly working adults balancing careers and families, the traditional four-year, 120-credit (or 180 quarter-credit) model can feel financially and logistically out of reach.

This matters because a narrow majority of Americans (54%) ages 25 to 34 do not hold a four-year degree. Millions of them have some college credit they either earned by starting college or taking college-level courses while in high school. What many discover after entering the workforce without a college degree is limited opportunities for advancement. For a working parent with 60 completed credits, the chance to finish their degree a year or two faster than a traditional degree could be the key incentive in returning to school.

Accelerated and reduced-credit bachelor’s programs do not lower standards. Accreditors have made clear that learning outcomes must remain rigorous and measurable. What these programs do is streamline requirements and provide coursework directly aligned with workforce needs. These programs reward those who have earned some college credit by offering a more efficient way to complete their bachelor’s degree and advance in their career.

Adoption has been slow. Of the roughly 4,000 degree-granting institutions in the country, only about 60 offer or are in the process of developing reduced-credit bachelor’s programs. The , which will launch this fall, requires 25% fewer credit hours than the traditional four-year degree and is fully online.

The goal is to increase access and provide more options. While the Higher Learning Commission approved DU’s request to be the first institution in Colorado to offer such a program, state oversight that public institutions face is preventing them from doing the same. Other states are making progress in this area. Earlier this month, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education voted to consider proposals from colleges and universities seeking to establish programs that would require fewer than the traditional number of credits.

These programs will never replace the four-year college experience. The knowledge, experience, and relationships that students gain all while living away from home for the first time is truly transformative. This experience is for a student at a different time in their life and career. The accelerated degree program solves a problem for the early-to-mid-career individual who may experience limitations around time and money because of where they are in their lives.

We must look for new ways to achieve the desired learning outcomes that students are looking for and develop a workforce that serves our communities and strengthens our economy. Higher education has always evolved in response to social and economic change, and these bachelor’s programs may be the next stage in that evolution. Institutions that embrace this model may help ensure the sectors’ relevance in the decades ahead.

Jeremy Haefner is the 19th chancellor at the University of Denver. Bobbie Kite is the dean of the College of Professional Studies at the University of Denver.

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Normally, during times of trouble, gold and U.S. Treasuries have acted as safe havens for investors. But that wasn’t the case on Tuesday. Both gold and U.S. Treasury prices fell.

“Gold stocks and gold prices can make very counterintuitive moves. I think that it was just one of those counterintuitive moves,” said Kevin Smith, founder and CEO of Denver-based Crescat Capital, which manages a precious metals fund.

The spot price of gold fell by 4.5% a troy ounce on a day when it normally would have been expected go up. The drop appears to be an effort by investors to get “liquid” or hold cash. Treasuries were down on concerns that higher oil prices could accelerate inflation.

Denver remains a global hub for the gold mining industry. Precious metal companies were the worst-performing Colorado stocks on Tuesday, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the $18.3 billion that the state’s 55 largest public companies shed in value, according to a Denver Post analysis.

Shares of Denver-based SSR Mining, the third-largest gold producer in the U.S., fell 9.42%. Englewood-based Vista Gold Corp., which operates a gold mine in Australia, suffered a 9.25% drop in its share price.

But the biggest hit in dollars, $11 billion erased, came from the 7.9% drop in the share price of Newmont Corp., the world’s largest gold mining company.

Some of the downward pressure was company-specific. Newmont, which became Colorado’s largest public company following the departure of Palantir Technologies from Denver last month, was downgraded by TD Securities, which now rates the company a “hold.” Tuesday was also the company’s ex-dividend date, or the cutoff that determines what investors can collect a declared dividend. Shares usually fall by around the per-share amount of the dividend that is being paid.

The drop in gold prices, however, was the biggest driver, as it was for other gold-related companies.

Denver-based Royal Gold, a royalty and streaming company, saw its shares fall 7.66%. Royal Gold provides capital to mining companies. It is repaid in royalties on gold production or through rights to purchase a mine’s future metal production at a steep discount.

Solitario Resources, a Wheat Ridge company that has been pivoting away from zinc mining to focus more on gold exploration, saw its shares drop 3.4% in value.

Sandwiched in between those four mining companies was Gloo Holdings, a Boulder-based technology platform that provided investors with a fourth-quarter they apparently didn’t like on Monday afternoon. Its shares were down 8.1%.

Smith, who was attending a gold mining conference in Toronto, said the mood among industry players was upbeat. He urged investors not to give up on gold because of one day’s action.

“I believe we are still in the early phases of a major bull market for the mining industry. Last year was the first big year we had after a 15-year bear market,” he said.

Gold remains in short supply, and it can take 15 years for a new mine to get all the approvals needed to start production. He said pullbacks are normal and that he expects investors without exposure to gold to buy into any dips.

Expenses grew faster than payments in 2022 and 2023, narrowing hospitals’ margins on patient care, while a stock market downturn cut into the value of their investments. In 2024, the trend reversed, according to the new reports, with insurance payments growing slightly faster than the cost of providing care.

Still, Colorado hospitals say their finances aren’t on a solid footing as the next challenge looms: Medicaid work requirements will kick in Jan. 1, and people who lose coverage will almost certainly become uninsured. Medicaid doesn’t cover most hospitals’ full costs, but they collect little or nothing from patients without insurance.

The state’s hospitals made about $101.6 million on patient care in 2024, up from $11 million in 2023, according to the .

That translates to roughly $99 in profit per patient in 2024 — up from $11 per patient in 2023, but far from the pre-pandemic level of $1,367 per patient in 2019.

Counting investment income, hospitals came out ahead by about $1.9 billion in 2024, with most of the profit going to large facilities. Total profits were about $407 million higher than in 2023, but still about $381 million below 2019 levels.

The releases two legislatively mandated reports, which lag by one year, on hospital systems’ finances each January. A third report, on , lags two years, so the data only covered 2023.

The overall profits conceal significant variation.

Out of 85 facilities reporting data, 22 lost money overall, down from 32 in 2023, according to the . Overall profit margins ranged from a high of 33% at in Fort Collins to a low of -182% at , which opened in Colorado Springs that year.

Smaller and independent hospitals were more likely to lose money.

Hospitals didn’t perform as well without investment income included, however.

When looking at patient care and related operations, 45 hospitals lost money, and only 28 made 4% or more, which the considers a sustainable profit margin.

Which method generates a better picture of hospital finances is a perennial bone of contention. State officials describe reserves and investments as important for understanding facilities’ total wealth, while the hospital association likens them to retirement accounts that no one wants to tap for daily expenses.

Kim Bimestefer, executive director of the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, described 2024 as a time of stabilization for hospitals, because payments started growing faster than expenses for the first time since 2021. Both have roughly doubled over the last decade, she said.

“At the other side paying all of this are consumers and employers, so we’ve got to recognize the sustainability of that, how do we work together to get it down, but also recognize where the hospitals are struggling,” she said.

Complete data from 2025 isn’t yet available, but the numbers from the first nine months of the year suggest hospitals continued “treading water” last year, said Tom Rennell, senior vice president of financial policy and data analytics at the hospital association.

Inflation remains high and the cost of uncompensated care is increasing, so 2024 was a challenging year, he said.

“Everyone’s just kind of hanging in there,” Rennell said.

Uncompensated care, which is the sum of charity care hospitals provide and bills they can’t collect, increased by about $171.7 million, or close to one-third, from 2023 to 2024.

The department attributed the increase to the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, when states had to start verifying Medicaid eligibility again and recipients lost coverage. The Census Bureau estimated the uninsured rate in Colorado rose from 6.7% in 2023 to 7.9% in 2024.

, the city’s safety-net hospital, provided $174.7 million in uncompensated care, or about one-quarter of all unpaid services in the state, followed by , in Aurora, at $76.1 million and , in Colorado Springs, at $24.4 million.

The cost of uncompensated care will almost certainly increase in the coming years.

Medicaid work requirements under H.R. 1 — known as the “big beautiful bill” — will take effect in January 2027, and people who can’t navigate the process won’t have another option for health insurance, said Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of the Medicaid and uninsured program at , a nonprofit that does health policy research, polling and journalism.

States will have some control over the resources they put into finding data so that fewer people have to file their work hours manually, but an increase in the number of uninsured people is inevitable, she said.

“Regardless of how much data-matching states are able to do, people are going to fall through the cracks,” Tolbert said.

Donna Lynne, CEO of Denver Health, said the state’s plans to hold Medicaid rates flat for the next few years, combined with cuts under H.R. 1, will force difficult choices in hospitals that serve large numbers of low-income people.

Colorado faces a budget gap approaching $1 billion, and Medicaid accounts for one-third of state spending.

“We’re not crying wolf. The bottom is going to fall out,” she said during a on Feb. 11. Denver Health lost about $20.5 million on patient care and related services in 2024, and had a 0.2% profit margin with investments.

The coming increase in the uninsured rate means that hospitals will need to do more to help patients navigate the Medicaid enrollment process and to provide the assistance their communities need most, said Sophia Hennessy, policy and research lead coordinator at the .

Federal law requires nonprofit hospitals, which are exempt from most taxes, to spend money on “community benefit,” which can include free care, health-promotion programs and medical research, among other things.

The state’s community benefit report showed nonprofit hospitals spent about $1.4 billion on community benefits, exceeding the value of their tax exemptions.

Training and recruiting providers, mostly at the and , accounted for the largest share, followed by charity care and unspecified other programs.

“Hospitals are, net, doing strong, and we want to see more of an investment in Coloradans,” Hennessy said.

Rennell disagreed that hospitals’ overall position is strong. Most are financially shaky and expect the situation to get worse as more patients lose their insurance next year, which could force some to close or reduce services, he said.

“Our hospitals are taking that seriously, yet feeling the road ahead is going to bring difficult choices,” he said.

Two years later, that margin landed at a still-slender 2,449 votes. Advantage: Republican.

Political watchers expect another close call in November, given the politically competitive makeup of the four-year-old district that stretches from Denver’s northern suburbs to Greeley and Larimer County. But who will end up victorious in the 8th District, which , is where people are laying their bets.

“It’s in the top 10 pickup opportunities for Democrats,” said Erin Covey, the U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report. “Democrats only need to flip three seats to take control of the House. This is going to be on the front lines of the Republican defense.”

Three Democratic challengers have emerged from a field that just a few months ago was twice as large. They are state Rep. Manny Rutinel, attorney and former state Rep. Shannon Bird, and Evan Munsing, a former U.S. Marine and an investment firm adviser.

They must battle it out amongst themselves in the June 30 primary before one of them goes on to face freshman Rep. Gabe Evans in the Nov. 3 general election.

On paper, things look tough for Evans, a former state lawmaker himself.

Historically, midterm elections have gone poorly for the party that occupies the White House. Democratic victories in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey last November — and — may be a harbinger of things to come.

“It should be a good cycle for Democrats,” Covey said.

Add to that mix a polarizing president with , an uncertain economy and chaotic recent scenes from Minneapolis, where two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents last month during an immigration crackdown.

The main strategy for the Democratic field in the 8th District is clear: Make it about Trump.

“Gabe Evans has a track record of doing what Donald Trump wants, even if it hurts our district,” Bird said. “We have a current representative who is rolling over for this administration.”

Rutinel said Evans is “just interested in going along.”

“Trump says jump, and Gabe Evans says how high,” he said.

Evans said that’s not true. He points to a letter he and other GOP members of Congress sent to President Trump in October from Argentina. He has also advocated a different approach from the administration to dealing with migrants who are in the country illegally.

Democratic hopefuls in the race would be wise to restrain their most progressive impulses, said Robert Pruehs, a political science professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Elections in Colorado’s 8th District have very much turned on candidates successfully wooing independents, the district’s largest voting bloc.

“You need to have a broad coalition in this kind of district,” he said. “The unaffiliated voters in the general election are going to demand some moderation.”

Rutinel, who has lived in Commerce City for five years, says the race is “personal for me.” He was brought up by a single mother in a house that was foreclosed on during the Great Recession. At 31, he is the youngest candidate in the race. He sees a piece of himself in the district’s working-class voters.

Of the Democratic contenders, Bird, 56, has had by far the longest tenure — 25 years — in what became the 8th District, Colorado’s newest seat in Congress, when it was drawn following the 2020 census. A former Westminster city councilwoman and a state lawmaker since 2019 — she resigned last month to focus fully on her congressional campaign — Bird was also brought up by a single mom. Tips from her grandmother’s casino dealer job in Reno, Nevada, sustained the family, she said.

As the only Democratic candidate with military experience, Munsing said he would be the best choice to take on Evans, a former Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot who served in the Middle East. Munsing, 37, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2013.

“If we want to go toe-to-toe with him, we need a veteran and a businessman,” said Munsing, who has lived in the district for about a year.

Covey, with the Cook Political Report, said the frontrunner position in the Democratic race is as yet unfilled. Rutinel , but there’s still a long way to go until the end of June, she said.

“I would say this race is pretty wide open,” Covey said.

Immigration at the crux

Immigration policy will likely be one of the more salient issues in the 8th Congressional District race.

The district has the highest proportion of Latinos among Colorado’s eight congressional districts, with about 40% of the population identifying as such when it was created. Weld County is home to numerous large farms and food production businesses that hire immigrant workers — including the U.S. headquarters of JBS, part of the world’s largest meatpacking company.

“The real issue is, how is Gabe Evans going to respond to ICE activity over the next eight months?” Pruehs said. “The onus is on the Evans campaign to distance him from the Trump administration.”

Evans, 39, of Fort Lupton, believes the priority should be on the apprehension of those who are in the country illegally and have committed crimes. As Trump’s mass-deportation efforts ramped up in his first few months back in the White House, Evans joined five members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference in sending a letter to ICE leadership expressing concern “that your limited resources may be stretched to pursue individuals that do not constitute an immediate threat to public safety.”

In an interview with The Denver Post last week, Evans said he has been “very consistent on immigration.”

“Secure the border, go after the bad guys and have some sort of pathway forward for the people who aren’t causing problems and are integrated into our economy,” he said.

But that’s not what’s happening, said Rutinel, who has called for impeaching Kristi Noem, Trump’s Homeland Security secretary. Her department oversees ICE.

“People voted for order, security and safety — instead they’re getting chaos and danger,” he said. “What’s happening under the Trump administration should terrify every American.”

Munsing says Evans hasn’t been nearly loud enough in highlighting the abuses committed by ICE agents and other officers involved in immigration crackdowns, including the “deeply troubling” deaths of protesters Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month. He said ICE agents are poorly trained and have .

“We need to get rid of warrantless arrests. Racial profiling and indiscriminate arrests based on how people look and their accent has been very troubling to people here,” Munsing said. “We should fire all these people who were hired since Trump got into office and bring the (ICE) budget back to where it was in 2024.”

Evans, a former police officer, said he opposes ICE agents entering homes without a search warrant.

“I was a cop for 10 years — you got to have a search warrant to go into a house,” he said. “So I disagree with the ICE memo that says they don’t need a search warrant to go into houses.”

On the first anniversary of the start of Trump’s second term on Jan. 20, the Department of Homeland Security that 70% of those arrested by ICE were “convicted criminals or have criminal charges.” During Trump’s first year back, the agency said, ICE arrested more than 43,000 people who posed a potential national security risk and apprehended more than 1,400 known or suspected terrorists. It has made 7,000 gang arrests, according to the administration.

Earlier this month, CBS News it obtained revealed that less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE in Trump’s first year had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses. Other watchdog groups and news organizations that have scrutinized ICE data have questioned the administration’s characterizations of those arrested, too.

But Evans’ said the CBS report was “100% muddying the waters,” given that offenses like distribution of child pornography, human smuggling, drug dealing, burglary and drunken driving fall into the nonviolent category.

Bird said the idea that ICE can’t adhere to the law when apprehending criminals who are in the country illegally is a “false choice.”

“ICE needs to be held to the exact same standards as every other law enforcement agency,” she said.

While immigration enforcement may be a difficult issue for Evans, the congressman might gain political traction by turning to the nation’s plummeting crime rate.

According to a January report from the , homicides were down 21% in 2025 compared to President Joe Biden’s final year in office, while there were 9% fewer aggravated assaults, 22% fewer gun assaults and 2% fewer domestic violence incidents.

Evans’ Democratic opponents say that improvement has little to do with Trump.

“Nice job for trying to take credit for something that happened at the state level,” Bird said, citing her support for bills in the state house that clamped down on auto and catalytic converter theft.

Evans scoffed at the former state lawmaker’s assertion.

“Gee, what happened across the country starting in 2025?” he said. “It’s not because under Joe Biden, blue cities forgot how to police — and then under Trump, blue cities all of a sudden started policing again. It’s because of federal law enforcement going after the known bad guys, the professional bad guys, the cartels, the drug dealers, the organized criminals.”

Prices, tariffs also in play

Perceptions of the economy’s health will undoubtedly take center stage this fall, Covey said, and Evans’ fate — and that of the party in power — will be tied to its performance.

The inflation rate has fallen sharply from its peak of 9% in 2022, and it more than some economists expected. But what matters is how voters feel about their financial situations come fall.

“The economy more broadly is going to be the driving issue,” she said. “A lot of people are dissatisfied with the way Trump is handling the economy as opposed to his first term.”

Affordability, Bird said, is the top concern she hears from voters while campaigning. That includes prices at the grocery store, but more notably a projected doubling of health insurance premiums for the 320,000 Coloradans who had been receiving now-expired enhanced pandemic-era subsidies on the individual marketplace.

Meanwhile, Trump’s tariff policies have been at the heart of the cost-of-living problem, she said.

“For our ranchers and farmers, there’s a fear of retaliatory tariffs and trade wars,” Bird said.

In a momentous decision Friday, the Supreme Court struck down the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs the president had levied on nearly every other country last spring. The majority found that the Constitution “very clearly” gives Congress the power to impose taxes, which include tariffs.

Rutinel, who worked as an economist for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the residents of the 8th District have been paying the price for Trump’s import taxes.

“You don’t have to be a trained economist to see how tariffs are essentially a natural sales tax on all consumers and that they will bear the brunt of the costs,” Rutinel said. “What the folks in the district are telling me is they feel they’ve been lied to.”

This month, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation calculated that Trump’s tariffs of $1,000 per American household in 2025, an amount projected to increase to $1,300 this year.

While inflation has been tamed from the runaway prices under the previous administration, Munsing said the impacts of the White House’s tariffs are still working their way through the economy. Businesses, along with farmers and ranchers in the 8th District, are having trouble planning the year out because of the uncertainty, he said.

“They’re getting to the point where they have to pass these costs along,” Munsing said. “They survived COVID, they survived supply chain disruptions — and they are hearing from customers who are worried about prices going up.”

For Evans, Covey thinks he had a “potentially missed opportunity to separate himself from the president.” He chose not to join fellow Colorado Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, who — along with five GOP House members — that Trump has used as the basis for imposing tariffs on Canada.

Evans said that while tariffs are challenging for the agriculture and ranching sectors, lopsided trade arrangements that hurt American producers are no better.

“So yeah, long term, big picture: I’m totally a free trade guy, but free trade has to be fair trade,” he said.

June 30 primary comes first

Before a Democrat can face off against Evans this November, they have to face off against each other in June.

Rutinel, who was first to jump into the race at the beginning of 2025, has raised the most money of the three — with $2.5 million taken in as of the end of 2025. Bird has raised $1.2 million and Munsing has collected nearly $500,000.

The race has gelled in recent months as other candidates have dropped out, including Colorado Treasurer Dave Young; Amie Baca-Oehlert, the former president of the state’s largest teachers union; and former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, the first person to hold the seat.

Evans has one challenge from his own party. But that candidate, Adam Derito, has raised less than $30,000 to Evans’ more than $3 million haul.

Among the Democrats, Munsing fired the first big campaign salvo this month.

He accused Bird of being too soft on ICE by voting against a 2025 bill in the state House. Senate Bill 276 attempted to further curtail federal immigration authorities’ access to public spaces in Colorado — from government buildings to libraries to public schools — and limited local governments’ ability to share information with those authorities.

“Shannon Bird continues to bury her head in the sand and hope that voters are not going to pay attention to the vote that even perplexed her colleagues in the state legislature,” his campaign wrote in a Feb. 12 news release.

Last week, Rutinel weighed in on SB-276 too, saying he co-sponsored the law “to protect our immigrant neighbors from ICE brutality.” He said he and his Democratic colleagues were “severely disappointed that Shannon Bird was the only House Democrat to vote against it.”

Bird said her “no” vote on SB-276 happened during a committee hearing on the bill. She thought the bill needed improvement before getting her support, she said. When the bill came up for a vote on the full floor of the House a few weeks later, she was absent due to a family medical emergency.

“It was one of the few votes I missed, and I regret that,” Bird said.

She said she would have voted yes on the final go-around.

With Rutinel having been elected to the state House only once and Munsing having no experience in public office, Bird said she is the most viable candidate to defeat Evans in November.

“I’m the only one in this race to win a contested election and to do it five times,” she said.

Pruehs, the political science professor, said the Democratic candidates can stake out positions on the left up until the primary election. Then, in a district so evenly divided along partisan lines, they will need to artfully and nimbly steer to the political middle as November draws closer.

“There is a need to make sure your message isn’t so far afield that you can’t attract more moderate voters,” he said.

Consumer prices in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood region are up 2.6% on the year in January, which is a significant acceleration from the 2.2% annual pace measured in November, according to an . Denver’s inflation rate in January edged ahead of the U.S. inflation rate, which increased 2.4%.

Romantics need to take note of two items that are facing outsized increases. The cost of dining out is up 5% year-over-year in January, and alcoholic beverages are up 6.6%. For those looking to buy a comfy love seat, furniture prices are up 8.8% on average, due in part to additional tariffs on Chinese goods and higher shipping costs.

Food eaten at home, also known as groceries, is up a scant 0.2%, aided by a 3.7% decline in fruit and vegetable prices and a 0.4% decline in meat, fish and eggs. Cereal and bakery products had the biggest increase in the food at home group at 5.8%.

Housing, the most heavily weighted item in the CPI, was up 3.6%, although rents specifically were up 1.7%.  The cost of medical care was up 6.7%. Clothing costs were up 1.3%.

Transportation costs offered consumers relief with a 2.3% decline. New car prices were essentially flat and used car prices were down 2.2%. Gasoline provided the biggest savings compared to last year — prices at the pump are down 18.3% the past year. Military tensions with Iran, however, have pushed fuel prices higher this month.