They’ll be part of a contingent of local Democratic heavy-hitters — also including Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib — visiting the Crescent City to bolster Denver’s bid as it competes against four other cities.

Crow said the fact that Denver has done it before means it’s more than prepared to do it again. Denver hosted the Democratic convention in 2008, when a fresh-faced U.S. senator from Illinois named Barack Obama accepted the party’s presidential nomination.

“We know we can do this and do this well,” the congressman from Aurora told The Denver Post in an interview on Thursday. “We have the capacity. We have the infrastructure.”

And Colorado, he said, has the blue credentials to excite the base and put them to work making sure the next occupant of the White House is a Democrat.

“At a time when the Democratic Party is facing a crisis of confidence in so many places, and in so many ways, Colorado is a beacon of how to do it right,” Crow said.

Early last month, the national party announced that Denver to host the Democratic National Convention — joining Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. The nominating convention for the party’s presidential ticket is set for Aug. 7-10, 2028.

The party and potential host cities are working out site visit plans for each in the coming weeks. A decision on which city wins the bid will likely be made this summer.

Johnston and other city representatives have lobbied for the event both formally and informally in recent months. The mayor’s spokesman, Jon Ewing, confirmed Johnston’s appearance in New Orleans this weekend and said the mayor recognizes the manifold benefits of steering the event to the Mile High City.

“Landing the DNC would be an enormous economic boon for Denver, bringing tens of thousands of visitors to Colorado and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in activity for the city and local businesses,” Ewing said.

Murib spoke to The Post by phone from New Orleans, where he’s been since Monday. He will join Crow and Johnston in speaking to the delegates at the spring meeting on Friday evening.

“We’re hoping to show them why Denver is the best place for the 2028 convention,” he said. “We want to emphasize the seamless experience they will have in Denver — from the airport to the hotels to the convention.”

Each of the finalist cities has hosted at least one past Democratic convention — Philadelphia in 2016, Boston in 2004 and Atlanta in 1988. Chicago hosted in 2024, the most recent of its dozen times playing the role.

“We want to show how the convention could be one for the history books again,” Murib said, alluding to the nomination of America’s first Black president 18 years ago.

Murib said three Denver City Council members — President Amanda Sandoval, Chris Hinds and Darrell Watson — will be at the national Democrats’ meeting as well.

Crow, an Army veteran who represents a Colorado district that takes in the eastern and southern suburbs of Denver, is serving as battleground co-chair for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2026 election cycle.

Colorado was among the top states in the nation for Democratic performance in the 2024 election, bucking what was otherwise a red wave that handed control of the White House and Congress to Republicans. Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris beat now-President Donald Trump in Colorado by a margin of 11 percentage points.

“We’re a model for the country,” Crow said.

He said this week’s gathering of party leaders is a critical moment in the push to get Denver back on the national stage two years from now.

“This is the biggest gathering between now and when the (convention) decision is made,” Crow said.

Murib said the meeting in New Orleans won’t be all serious business, though.

“It’s a little bit of a party — and a pitch,” he said.

Someone dressed in a big blue bear costume — an homage to the 40-foot ursine behemoth who peers into the Colorado Convention Center along 14th Street in downtown Denver — has already been getting a lot of attention from attendees, the party chair said.

“Everyone is getting a picture with the big blue bear wearing Mardi Gras beads,” he said.

“In every aspect of life, Latinos have attenuated their normal behavior and avoided critical locations, like work and school, in order to stay clear of the immigration (enforcement) surge,” pollster Gary Segura told reporters upon releasing the results.

The issues identified more broadly in the poll, which was released earlier this month, reflect a growing national consensus among all voters, not just Latinos. The overwhelming concern with affordability — respondents’ top four issues all related to the cost of living and the economy — shows that economic fears have endured through President Donald Trump’s first nine months in office, with recent elections across the country notching wins for Democrats who focused on the issue.

But the results also revealed mounting fear about an erosion of civil rights and discontent with the Republican president’s efforts to rapidly arrest and deport millions of immigrants without proper legal status.

Forty percent of the registered voters who participated in the survey said they or their communities feared that immigration authorities would arrest them, even if they’re U.S. citizens or have some kind of legal status. And 30% said they or their communities feared interacting with or calling the police, while 28% said they or their communities feared attending regular immigration proceedings because they could be arrested.

Asked whether civil rights had improved under Trump, 62% said they hadn’t, compared to 20% who said they had.

Those results also reflect that Latino voters are aware of how the federal government is carrying out its immigration agenda. Immigrants have repeatedly been arrested while attending regular immigration hearings, as advocates have said and court filings reviewed by The Denver Post have indicated.

ProPublica, a nonprofit news outlet, that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration authorities nationwide this year. Immigrants with legal status and work permits, like a Douglas County teacher arrested last month, have also been caught up in raids and arrests.

“The actions of the Trump administration are fundamentally changing the way that Latino citizens are interacting with their government,” said Phil Chen, a political science professor at the University of Denver who reviewed the poll. “A quarter of them say that they or their community are missing classes because parents are worried about being arrested driving to school. I read (those results) as deeply, deeply troubling.”

About 23% of Colorado residents are of Hispanic or Latino origin, according to .

The poll was conducted by a bipartisan polling team last month. It surveyed 400 Latino registered voters in Colorado (meaning all respondents are U.S. citizens). Its margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Concerns with Trump, Republicans

Latino Coloradans, , also expressed mounting concerns with the Trump administration and Republicans who control Congress. Eighty-one percent of respondents said they were concerned that Congress wasn’t acting as a check on Trump. Asked who was to blame for the recent government shutdown, 61% said the president and his party, compared to 23% who blamed Democrats. Two-thirds disapproved of Trump’s performance in office.

There was also a “very concerning” bleed of support from formerly Trump-supporting Latino voters, Segura said. More than a third of respondents said they’d voted for Trump in 2024.

The vast majority of that group — 80% — said they would vote for him again. But 13% said they wouldn’t, and the remaining 7% said they were unsure. Of those who supported then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, 91% said they would vote for her again, and the remaining share said they weren’t sure.

“When there’s a party that holds all of the levers of power in the federal government, (voters) are going to blame that party for things they think are not going well and probably give them credit for things that are going well,” Chen said. “This is the pattern we expect to find in every off-year and midterm election.

“So if you were (U.S. Rep.) Gabe Evans or the state Republican Party, I think it����ap really important to start thinking about how you talk about issues around affordability — around housing costs, food costs, inflation, job opportunities, things like that.”

Evans, a Republican, represents the 8th Congressional District stretching from the northern Denver suburbs to Greeley, and it’s one of the most contested congressional seats in the country. Much of his successful 2024 campaign focused on immigration and public safety.

‘Latinos are looking for leadership’

Still, criticism of Trump doesn’t necessarily mean Latino voters are running straight into the arms of the Democratic Party, said Alex Sánchez, the president and CEO of Voces Unidas, which is part of the coalition that released the poll.

Fifty-two percent of self-identified independents surveyed in the poll said they either didn’t know which party they’d support next year or that they wanted to support someone else. (A plurality of independents, 35%, said they would support Democrats, compared to 12% for Republicans.)

“There are warning signs to both parties in the data,” Sánchez said in an interview. “While, yes, Colorado Democrats fare better … they’re not too far from the danger zone. That����ap what we see in the data: a clear sign that Latinos are looking for leadership, are looking for results.”

He added about Latinos: “We are not brand loyal. We don’t carry the party loyalty the same way that other voters do. Latinas and Latinos historically vote based on value and vote based on results, instead of party sticker and party label.”

Despite the unpopularity of the Trump administration’s mass-deportation efforts, affordability concerns were still far and away the top concerns for voters. Forty-eight percent of respondents said the cost of living and inflation were their top priority.

Housing affordability, jobs and the economy, and health care were the next-highest priorities, followed by gun violence and, in sixth, immigration. More than half of respondents said it was most important for election officials to tackle either prices and affordability, or wages and good jobs.

That’s unsurprising, Chen said. Affordability was a dominant issue in elections elsewhere in the U.S. earlier this month, he said, and has remained a top issue for all Colorado voters for years.

With next year’s midterms approaching, that the Trump administration had begun floating new affordability ideas in recent weeks as it faces the reality that Americans are still pessimistic about the economy as they struggle with higher prices.

“You can think of (the immigration crackdown) as a problem. It can affect your impressions of President Trump,” Chen said. “But when it comes to how (Latinos) are going to vote, (they’re) going to vote on the thing that����ap really affected me, which is the economy.”

The U.S. Department of Energy said in a statement Thursday that 223 projects were terminated nationwide after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable.

Twenty entities in Colorado were on that list, including the University of Colorado, Colorado School of Mines, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, businesses dedicated to emissions reductions such as solar companies, and nonprofits that promote clean energy — including one that works with Indian tribes on clean energy projects.

The largest chunk of money being stripped involves $326 million for Colorado State University, much of which went toward research on reducing methane, a potent planet-warming gas, from oil and gas wells.

Other programs impacted at CSU involve research on how to convert harmful emissions into renewable energy and how to accurately measure emissions from oil and gas wells in the Denver-Julesburg and Upper Green River basins. The funding would impact 32 jobs, including eight staffed by students, according to a fact sheet provided by the university.

“The proposed cancellation of CSU’s Department of Energy research projects would have far-reaching consequences not just for Colorado but for the nation. These seven projects support critical research that directly serves the oil and gas industry, energy companies and energy-producing communities nationwide,” CSU vice president for research Cassandra Moseley said in a statement. “The cuts would eliminate research positions at the university and halt collaborative work that provides industry and policymakers with trusted data and develops technologies to make the nation’s energy infrastructure safer, more efficient and competitive.”

Two Colorado Energy Office grants that are targeted would provide $5 million to support programs that improve energy efficiency and cut carbon emissions from buildings.

The move comes as President Donald Trump threatens deep cuts in his fight with congressional Democrats over the government shutdown. Most of the projects being terminated were budgeted for states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election and have Democratic governors and senators.

Ari Rosenblum, a spokesperson for the Colorado Energy Office, said in a written statement that the office had not formally received any official federal notices of termination, but understood that two of its projects were on the list, “which specifically targets states where a majority of Americans cast their votes in favor of the Democratic nominee for president.”

“This clearly politically motivated targeting of grants by the administration will balloon energy costs, threaten grid reliability, increase pollution and create instability in our business community,” Rosenblum said.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Aurora, accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the federal government to punish people who did not vote for him.

“This spiteful and cruel decision will raise energy bills and mean the loss of good-paying jobs in Colorado,” Crow said in a statement. “We will not kiss the ring of a wannabe king. This blatant intimidation and act of retribution is illegal.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who is from Colorado and is the founder of Denver-based Liberty Energy, an oilfield services company, said in a news release that his department had been reviewing financial awards since he was appointed by Trump and was attempting to trim waste.

“President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable and secure energy,” said Wright, who has opposed any efforts to combat climate change. “Today’s cancellations deliver on that commitment. Rest assured, the Energy Department will continue reviewing awards to ensure that every dollar works for the American people.”

The Energy Department did not respond to The Denver Post’s request for an interview with Wright.

The cuts were announced in a social media post late Wednesday by Russell Vought, the White House budget director: “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left����ap climate agenda is being canceled.”

The elimination of hundreds of grants is likely to affect battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, upgrades to the electric grid and carbon-capture efforts, among many others, according to the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

Officials did not provide details about which projects are being cut, but said funding came from the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and other DOE bureaus.

The cuts include $1.2 billion for that is aimed at accelerating hydrogen technology and production, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. The private sector has committed $10 billion for the hydrogen hub, Newsom’s office said, adding that canceling the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems threatens over 200,000 jobs.

“Clean hydrogen deserves to be part of California’s energy future — creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and saving billions in health costs,” the Democratic governor said.

The DOE said it has reviewed billions of dollars awarded by the Biden administration after Trump won the presidential election last November. More than a quarter of the rescinded grants were awarded between Election Day and Inauguration Day, the department said. The awards totaled more than $3.1 billion.

The Trump administration has broadly targeted climate programs and clean energy, and is proposing to roll back vehicle emission and other greenhouse gas rules that it says can’t be justified. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed overturning a 2009 finding that climate change threatens public health.

Many climate scientists .

Vought said the projects being cut are in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.

Thus, I will not be endorsing the intelligent, hard-working State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer for Colorado governor. Sensible, principled, and conservative but able to work across the aisle, Kirkmeyer is the best Republican candidate to run for governor in years.

Likewise, I will not be endorsing the smart, affable, and fabulously mustached former president of the State Senate and current Fremont County Commissioner Kevin Grantham for state treasurer. Both of these candidates have solid platforms and neither one raves hysterically on social media, so do not look for my name on their list of endorsements. They have a chance in 2026, albeit a slim one, so I won’t risk it. Although Colorado is solidly blue, weakened support for Democrats and a softening economy may give these two Republicans the chance they need to take a statewide office.

A recent Magellan Strategies poll finds that of those who voted for Kamala Harris last year, 47% now have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party. The same poll shows 52% have an unfavorable opinion of Gov. Jared Polis’ job as governor. Forty-four percent disapprove of U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and 49% U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper. As a recent Denver Post editorial noted, “After years of enjoying popularity, Colorado’s top Democrats are now showing a remarkable drop in their approval ratings among voters.” Democrats cannot coast through the next election and a strong Republican may have a chance.

Given this possibility and the risks associated with a Kafer endorsement, I will not endorse the strongest candidates but the weakest for the position they are best suited.

I endorse State Rep. Scott Bottoms, who is also running for governor, to play the next Church Lady on Saturday Night Live. Of all his colleagues, he most frequently mentions Satan on the dais. Comfortable as he is with calling everything socialist and Marxist, he could also play Sen. Joe McCarthy in a dramatization for the History Channel, if he shaved his beard that is. Bottoms is an election conspiracy theorist who plans to release former County Clerk Tina Peters from prison if elected. With the Magellan Strategies poll showing 59% disapproval of Trump, choosing a full tilt MAGA candidate is the best strategy for keeping Colorado solidly in the Democratic column.

If that����ap the goal, State Sen. Mark Baisley, another gubernatorial candidate, would also fit the bill. He once blamed Antifa for the Jan. 6 insurrection and once wrote that having hit their “socialist stride” the Democratic Party’s ultimate goal was “Sharia.” Keep Colorado blue, vote Baisley!

For embodying the axiom “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” I endorse former U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez who has run for governor twice and lost twice in the primary. Go for three! Tied with Lopez for the “try, try again” distinction is former State Rep. Janak Joshi who plans to run against Sen. John Hickenlooper who never loses and could probably run from the grave and win. Unfortunately, a solid non-endorsable Republican candidate has not thrown a hat into this race.

Finally, I could endorse Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell for governor, but I’ll need to Google his name and figure out where Teller County is.

All joking aside, it would be better for the party to run great candidates like Kirkmeyer and Grantham who can win not just Republican votes but bring along unaffiliated and even moderate Democrats. As elections in other blue states like Massachusetts and Maryland show, the right Republican candidate can win on occasion. To boost their chances, the candidates I have endorsed should drop out and direct their supporters and funders to a candidate who has a chance.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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With Republicans fielding the best candidate for governor they’ve had in a decade – Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer – liberal politicians would be wise to address the root causes of this dissatisfaction publicly, frequently and head-on. The reality is that Americans are struggling — our politics are becoming more violent, everything is more expensive, and the job market is tightening.

After years of enjoying popularity, Colorado’s top Democrats are now showing a remarkable drop in their approval ratings among voters. President Donald Trump remains deeply unpopular in the state, but Gov. Jared Polis, Sen. Michael Bennet and Sen. John Hickenlooper are failing to break a 50% approval rating, meaning more of those asked than not said they were unhappy with the politicians’ work.

Unaffiliated voters claim outright majority of Colorado electorate

These results from a poll conducted in early August of 1,136 registered Colorado voters by Magellan Strategies mirror what we are seeing across the nation. Americans are dissatisfied.

According to of available voter registration numbers, the Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters across the board and particularly in swing states. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is gaining voters after years of losses.

Part of the shift is voters simply changing their affiliation to unaffiliated, but the Magellan Poll clearly indicates that there is more afoot than voters just looking to participate in open primaries.

Magellan, a conservative-leaning Colorado firm, found that among voters who supported Kamala Harris in 2024, 47% have unfavorable opinions of the Democratic Party.

To be clear, voters who were polled still said they were more likely to support a Democrat for governor next year. Only 38% of those polled said they would likely support a Republican for governor. Kirkmeyer has an uphill battle to be certain, but her opponents are weakened.

We’d hazard a guess that the non-existent Democratic primary in 2023 to challenge a sitting president who was showing cognitive decline while in office is part of the reason voters are upset. It will take time for voters to forgive – and no one will ever forget – the disastrous presidential debate.

But national politics can’t take all the blame.

Gov. Jared Polis has served almost eight years in office and . That is softened only by the fact that 56% of voters polled strongly disapproved of the job President Donald Trump is doing, but Colorado has rejected Trump three times in general elections and the Republican Party rejected him in the 2016 caucus.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is doing slightly better with 44% of voters reporting disapproval of him, and U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper was at 49%.

Bennet is going to face Attorney General Phil Weiser in the Democratic Primary for governor. Weiser wasn’t included in the poll and neither were any of the Republican candidates.

The bottom line is that Democrats cannot spend this election talking about Donald Trump, and pretending that voters don't have real concerns about the governance of both political parties. Voters may still put many or even most Democrats into office, but if the party wants to recover, its top leaders must start this election cycle with something more than fear and loathing.

Coloradans are concerned. The Magellan poll found that 54% of voters anticipate the economy will decline in the next 12 months (with more Democrats expressing this fear than Republicans), a pessimistic view that requires our politicians to articulate a plan for the worst-case scenario.

Similarly, 54% think Colorado is headed in the wrong direction (with more Republicans unhappy than Democrats), and the high cost of living, public safety, and homelessness were mentioned frequently by voters as top concerns, according to Magellan. These issues will only be harder to address given the decline in federal, state and local revenue sources. Our next governor will articulate a feasible plan.

Finally, Democrats will win safe seats in 2026 with their heads in the sand, but if the party wants to gain ground in swing districts, its politicians are going to have to step up to the challenge at hand – restoring faith in and favorability of the party. Can that be done without rehashing the many missteps of the past four years? We would like to see elected officials be accountable and transparent.

But Colorado must move forward, as must the nation.

If Democrats want to stop losing ground, they've got to appeal to voters as far more than an alternative to Trump.

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U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper each notched approval ratings below 40% in the poll, with their disapproval ratings reaching 44% and 49%, respectively. Gov. Jared Polis’ approval was slightly better, at 41% — though that came with the caveat that a majority of voters, 52%, outright disapproved of the term-limited governor, according to the survey by Broomfield-based .

The rotten marks for the politicians fall within Colorado voters’ general malaise for politics. Both the Republican and Democratic parties had identical top-line favorabilities — of 68% negative versus 30% positive — albeit with different undercurrents driving the disdain for either.

And a majority of Colorado voters in the survey thought the state was on the wrong track. A majority predicted the state and national economies would take downward turns in the next 12 months.

Though Polis won’t be on next year’s ballot, Bennet is running to succeed him as governor and Hickenlooper is up for reelection. The poll did not ask respondents about Bennet’s leading Democratic primary opponent, Attorney General Phil Weiser.

The results show Coloradans in a bleak state of mind — but not necessarily looking to shed the state’s recent blue streak.

“Although Colorado remains a blue state, the well-documented decline in the national Democratic Party’s image rating and brand is real and apparent among Colorado voters,” David Flaherty, CEO of Magellan, said in an email.

“However,” he added, “it does not mean (President Donald) Trump and the Republicans are winning over hearts and minds. If they were, the wide range of Trump policies we tested would be getting better job approval ratings.”

The poll was conducted July 30 through Aug. 12 using text-message outreach. Pollsters surveyed 1,136 registered voters, and the data has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. Magellan, a conservative-leaning firm that often conducts polling for clients, paid for the poll itself.

Democrats still well-positioned for 2026

By more than 2-to-1 margins, Colorado voters surveyed didn’t feel good about the Democratic Party — and the disdain was shared by many Democratic voters.

Among those who voted for Kamala Harris for president last year, 47% reported unfavorable opinions of the party. Of registered Democrats, 41% reported unfavorable opinions toward their party.

As an anonymous Democratic woman in Arapahoe County characterized it in her survey response, the party has “no backbone, no follow-through, poor (or no) response to both mundane and gripping issues.”

Some Denver voters are souring on Mayor Mike Johnston, poll shows, but experts say he could regain footing

The Democrats' hole only deepened among unaffiliated voters, the largest voting bloc in the state. Seventy percent of those voters expressed an unfavorable opinion of the party.

The only silver lining for Democrats? Unaffiliated voters feel the same about the GOP.

The poll found voters’ problems with Democrats were reflected on some of the top officials in the state. Democrats hold every statewide office in Colorado and control both chambers of the state legislature.

Polis, who's entering his final year as governor due to term limits, was 11 points underwater in voter approval in the poll. That includes disapproval of his job performance by 24% of registered Democrats and Harris voters, and by half of unaffiliated voters.

Bennet and Hickenlooper find themselves in similar positions.

Bennet had 44% disapproval to 38% approval. Among Democrats and Harris voters, his approval jumped to 61% and 62%, respectively, though he was also underwater with unaffiliated voters at 39% approval and 45% disapproval.

However, the poor showing for Democrats doesn’t seem to put a terrible damper on their prospects heading into the next general election in 2026.

When asked how they'd vote If the election were held today, 50% of respondents said they would probably or definitely support the Democratic nominee for governor, versus 38% who'd support the Republican.

If congressional elections were held today, voters also gave Democrats a clear advantage in four of the state's eight congressional districts -- the ones currently represented by Democrats. The smaller sample size at the district level, however, came with larger margins of error of more than 8 percentage points.

The party also held a smaller edge for a fifth seat, according to the poll -- and a surprising one at that.

The poll found 47% of voters in the typically red 5th Congressional District in El Paso County would probably support the Democratic nominee there, versus 39% for the Republican nominee. In 2024, Republican Rep. Jeff Crank won the seat with nearly 55% of the vote.

In two other Republican seats -- the contentious 8th Congressional District, held by Rep. Gabe Evans, and the 3rd Congressional District, held by Rep. Jeff Hurd -- the poll results show the eventual GOP nominees with 5-point advantages, though the party doesn't crack 50% support in either case. The 4th Congressional District, now represented by Rep. Lauren Boebert, looks to remain as ruby red as ever, with voters there leaning Republican by 20 points.

“With the Democratic brand in the dumpster nationally, and three out of four voters disapproving of the Democrats in Washington, it will likely be easier for Congressional Republicans like Gabe Evans to win re-election,” Flaherty wrote, referring to overall approval ratings of congressional Democrats.

“Now, November 2026 is a long way off, and things could change," he said, "but the Democrats should not waste a lot of time crafting their agenda and priorities for the American people.”

Trump, tariffs and the ‘big, beautiful bill’

Colorado voters, who rejected Trump in three presidential elections in a row, continue to disapprove of the Republican. Overall, 41% of voters approved of the job he's doing, compared to 56% who strongly disapproved, according to the poll.

Their disapproval also extends to three cornerstones of his second term in office so far: 56% of voters in the survey held very unfavorable views of the tax and spending bill known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” with total unfavorability reaching 63%; 57% opposed Trump’s tariffs, while 80% said they would make the price of goods more expensive; and 51% strongly disapproved of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with total disapproval reaching 57%.

In all cases, the margins widen when only unaffiliated voters are accounted for. Within that group of voters, 68% disliked the spending bill, 62% opposed Trump’s tariffs and 60% disapproved of the job ICE was doing.

Unlike Democrats, where even the base has softened its support, Colorado Republicans and Trump voters still back their guy. 

On the spending bill, 79% of Trump voters and 84% of Republicans had a favorable view, while 90% and 91% supported Trump’s tariffs and ICE, respectively.

Republicans also held their party in higher regard than Democrats did theirs, with 87% having favorable views of the GOP.

KC Becker, a former Colorado House speaker who was President Joe Biden‘s political appointee to lead the in Denver, raced to secure one more agreement with Colorado regulators before she resigned on Inauguration Day, as is customary for federal political appointees.

She had made it a priority of her tenure to enforce the federal jurisdiction over the oil refinery in Commerce City — one of the state’s largest polluters, with a long history of violations — and she wanted the to take a step that could lead to more public notification and input on permits for major polluters.

She got the needed signature five days before Trump took office.

“I thought it was important because having more public transparency on these major permits is just going to lead to better air quality, and, because of that, better health for communities that carry the biggest burden of bad air quality,” Becker said. “I figured if we didn’t get it done before we left, it would fall by the wayside.”

The agreement exemplifies how a presidential administration’s decision to prioritize environmental justice can influence state policy, in this case giving people living in highly polluted neighborhoods a stronger voice when it comes to regulating industries that make them sick. It also illustrates how Colorado has benefited from strong federal oversight even when it has one of the more robust environmental justice laws in the country.

Yet the agreement between the EPA and CDPHE is not a done deal. Colorado’s air quality regulators still must write a proposed policy, present it to a state commission for approval and then follow it once it’s in place.

There will be no penalty if Colorado fails to follow through, especially with the sharp transition to a new administration that is now — making it even more vital for the state to commit to protecting people who live in neighborhoods that bear the brunt of air and water pollution, advocates said.

“I am concerned. Without EPA’s oversight we’re going to have to be very diligent in pushing CDPHE to do the right thing,” said Ean Tafoya, vice president of state programs for .

Environmental advocates say the returning president made it clear on Day 1 that he has to protect air, water and land, especially in communities such as Commerce City, where the residents suffer a disproportionate burden of pollution from industries that all Americans rely on for gasoline, cement and other industrial products.

Trump rescinded two of Biden’s executive orders that had prioritized environmental justice shortly after he was sworn into office. The dismantling continued from there.

The president’s decision to freeze EPA funding via grants created by Congress and the Biden administration is undergoing a legal challenge, but, if successful, would strike programs to address methane pollution from oil and gas wells, train workers for the clean energy sector, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, and clean up asbestos and other contaminants from public property.

Trump’s new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, has pledged to as major workforce reductions are . Ten people who specialize in environmental justice in the EPA’s Denver office already have been put on administrative leave.

Zeldin issued a memo Feb. 4 titled that outlines five pillars that will guide the agency’s work. While the first pillar is to provide “clean air, land and water for every American,” the other four address industry and economic needs — restoring energy dominance, permitting reform, making America the artificial intelligence capital of the world, and reviving American auto jobs.

When asked about the agency’s commitment to environmental justice under Zeldin, EPA spokesman Richard Mylott said in an email, “EPA will follow the law and our statutory duties to protect human health and the environment.”

But Colorado environmentalists are skeptical that the Trump administration will protect the environment, especially since the president has scoffed at the science of climate change.

“By and large, we had an EPA we could turn to,” said Joe Salazar, an Adams County attorney and former Democratic state legislator who has worked on environmental issues. “With a Trump administration, No. 1, we might not even have an EPA or, No. 2, we have a blunted EPA or, No. 3, we have an EPA that reverses course and defends polluters in weird ways. We don’t really know what����ap going to happen, but we know it����ap not going to be good.”

Roots of environmental justice

Environmental justice first became a federal priority during the Clinton administration when the president in 1994 directed the EPA to shift resources to marginalized communities that bore the brunt of pollution.

That directive grew from an increasing understanding in the 1980s and ’90s that people in poor communities that had been built around refineries, factories and landfills were sicker with asthma and other illnesses than people in other neighborhoods, said Chris Winter, an environmental lawyer and executive director of the University of Colorado Boulder’s .

People who live in those more polluted neighborhoods often are Black, Latino or Indigenous; earn less money; live in homes with lower values; and sometimes do not speak English as their first language. Those circumstances make it difficult to move away, forcing children to be raised around polluters such as the Suncor refinery.

Other areas of the state that have been designated as disproportionally impacted communities include Pueblo, the Western Slope and the San Luis Valley.

“Folks who are marginalized in low-income communities have less mobility,” Winter said. “They’re trapped.”

Trump undid Clinton’s order when he took office in 2017, Winter said.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris restored that priority on environmental justice during their administration, creating advisory councils, directing money toward communities overburdened by pollution and creating stronger regulations that cover air quality, asbestos use, coal ash cleanup and PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, which contaminate water.

“Environmental justice is saying let’s focus government efforts around pollution to where it’s needed most,” Becker said. “Where is the pollution the worst? Where is the investment the least? At the end of the day, that����ap all environmental justice is asking.”

But Trump and Zeldin are again rolling back policies that benefit those who are most at risk from pollution, Winter said.

The plans to downsize the EPA will strip the agency of scientists and drain it of institutional knowledge on complex environmental laws and how those laws protect land, water, air and people, he said.

Americans also can expect the Trump administration to reframe the story about environmental justice and disproportional impacts, Winter said.

“They’re going to try to downplay the importance or severity of those concerns,” he said. “Changing the narrative will be a part of their playbook.”

The administration also will roll back the EPA’s practice of conducting environmental justice analyses on air- and water-pollution permits, which establish the amount of toxic chemicals that companies can release, leaving those communities to continue drinking more contaminated water and breathing dirtier air than their neighbors.

And it will cut funding for projects such as increased air-quality monitoring in polluted neighborhoods, Winter said.

“That was a big part of the Biden administration,” he said. “Those types of funding opportunities are really important to disproportionately impacted communities to have a say in their communities.”

Major vs. minor modifications of permits

All of those moves are what gave Becker a sense of urgency to get CDPHE to sign that agreement that would put more scrutiny on air permits for big polluters.

“The recognition of the intersection with environmental laws was a priority of the Biden administration and we knew it would not be a priority for the Trump administration,” Becker said.

To that end, the EPA’s inspector general under Biden — who has since been fired by Trump — realized the agency had never conducted a review of its compliance with civil rights laws and ordered it to be done.

The EPA’s studied COVID-19 death rates in cities with poor air quality and found Commerce City and north Denver were among the worst in the nation, Becker said. So the agency picked Colorado as a focus.

Suncor was already on Becker and the EPA’s radar because CDPHE had been slow to renew the Commerce City refinery’s two and because public complaints about repeated permit violations were rampant. Becker thought the EPA could push the state to change the way it reviews those permits, which ultimately must receive EPA approval.

In March 2022, the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice informed CDPHE that it was launching a review of the state agency’s to investigate whether it followed federal civil rights laws in administering the Clean Air Act.

“We looked at Colorado and determined that part of the way Colorado manages Title V permits is that communities are excluded from the process,” Becker said. “We never reached a conclusion that said, ‘You’re violating the Civil Rights Act.’ But we said the process you’ve set up has limited opportunity for public comment. And because the majority of these pollution sources are in low-income, diverse communities, there could be a Civil Rights Act violation.”

Becker’s team at the EPA met with people in the community to hear their complaints and to collect ideas for a resolution. Ultimately CDPHE agreed to change how it addresses minor changes to Title V air permits.

When a company receives a Title V permit, it’s valid for five years. During that period, a company must seek CDPHE and EPA approval if it wants to change the amount of pollution it releases into the air.  But if a company wants to make minor changes that would create more pollution, but below a certain threshold, it does not have to go through the more robust approval process, which includes a public comment period.

The issue has been that polluters avoid more intense scrutiny by claiming they are going to make small changes in the amount of pollution coming from their facility by separating out projects rather than aggregating them into one larger plan, said Jeremy Nichols, a senior advocate at the . Those polluters tell the state the changes will be minor, and the state approves the request with no public review.

“What happened is people discovered that small changes that polluters claimed were minor were actually pretty significant,” he said.

Three groups representing the oil and gas industry declined to comment for this story. But in the past, representatives from the industry, chambers of commerce and other trade associations have argued that, while they are committed to protecting the environment, too many government regulations threaten their economic stability and the future of their businesses.

In January, the sent a seven-page memo to the EPA with its priorities for the new Trump administration. The institute’s list included actions on auto emissions, ozone standards, methane emissions and clean water rules. The memo reminded the new administration that the federal government’s regulations “directly shape the industry’s ability to innovate, maintain economic stability and meet evolving energy demands — all while prioritizing environmental protection and public health.”

Over the years, environmentalists like Nichols have accused Suncor of dividing its major alterations into smaller projects to avoid the more intense scrutiny. Environmentalists raised questions about it last year in petitions that asked the EPA to object to both of Suncor’s permit renewals.

Efforts to reach Suncor officials for comment were unsuccessful.

, on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity and the , noted in its petitions that Colorado regulators have allowed Suncor to begin making changes at its Commerce City refinery as soon as it files a minor-modification notice. No modeling was used to determine whether emissions changes would increase the amounts of sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides the refinery released and without any public determination as to whether the changes would trigger a violation of federal air quality standards.

The EPA asked the state’s Air Pollution Control Division to revisit those sections of Suncor’s air-pollution permits.

“Colorado ultimately did that analysis when they did the Suncor permit and decided there wasn’t an issue and EPA was satisfied with that,” Becker said.

But Becker and the community wanted to make that process for minor modifications more transparent so the public would know what Suncor is doing.

“We thought CDPHE would be open to this,” Becker said. “It seemed like it wasn’t something CDPHE was going to initiate on their own and we didn’t think the Trump administration would do it.”

The Colorado health department voluntarily agreed to propose a new rule that would change how it reviews those minor modifications to air-pollution permits by creating a process for public notifications and public comment. It would give people who live near the refinery — with the help of groups like the Center for Biological Diversity — a chance to review projects and provide input as to whether they would result in major or minor increases in toxic emissions.

“EPA stepped up and Colorado made concessions”

The state has one year to bring a proposed rule to the , which creates air pollution regulations that state health officials must carry out. That commission, whose members are appointed by Gov. Jared Polis, is not legally bound by the agreement with the EPA and could reject any proposals submitted. There would be no penalty for Colorado failing to uphold its end of the deal.

While CDPHE signed the agreement with the EPA, the agency continues to maintain that it has a strong environmental justice program and is a national role model for its work.

Colorado is one of 12 states that , and CDPHE manages an environmental justice office that helps carry it out. Since the law was passed in 2021, polluters are required to include environmental justice analyses in their permit applications and do more to notify the impacted communities of their plans.

“CDPHE viewed this partnership with EPA as an opportunity to further examine its civil rights and environmental justice work, and explore potential areas for improvement above and beyond current practice,” department spokeswoman Kate Malloy wrote in an email.

The Air Pollution Control Division plans to file a rule proposal by January, Malloy wrote.

“The agreement itself does not change our process, as it currently, and previously, complies with federal requirements,” Malloy wrote. “We committed to raise the topic of minor modifications with the Air Quality Control Commission. The commission will determine whether to adopt any changes.”

While the agreement could fall through, further weakening protections for Colorado’s most environmentally vulnerable communities, it illustrates the important role the EPA serves in the state, especially when it comes to environmental justice, said Nichols, of the Center for Biological Diversity.

“EPA stepped up and Colorado made concessions,” he said. “It speaks volumes as to how the state doesn’t get it right all the time. They need scrutiny.”

Lucy Molina, an environmental activist who lives in the shadow of the Suncor refinery, started questioning environmental policies several years ago when she realized her family and her neighbors were frequently sick. They suffered from nose bleeds, asthma attacks and cancer. No one seemed to care about their suffering until they started speaking out.

While there is uncertainty over the EPA’s future, she plans to continue participating in marches and rallies and speaking during public meetings.

“This is a matter of life and death. We’ve been fighting for our lives,” Molina said. “This administration — they’re murdering us. We are going to continue to fight for our lives. We’re going to continue to speak our voices and share our stories.”

Re: “Elon Musk tightens grip on federal government as Democrats raise alarms,” Feb. 3 news story

All U.S. senators and representatives take an oath promising to uphold the United States Constitution: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same … ” But I’m afraid many do it with their fingers crossed behind their backs.

They will uphold the Constitution only until President Donald Trump threatens them with a primary. Their allegiance is not to the Constitution of the United States but to Donald Trump, whom they do not so much admire as fear.

Our Constitution is so obviously under attack, with one of the most basic tenets, that the “power of the purse” rests with Congress, being ignored by both Elon Musk and his puppet, Trump. The Republicans who control Congress are being controlled with the threat of “primary.” They lack the political courage to defend our Constitution.

If you receive Social Security benefits or get a paycheck, the U.S. Treasury has your Social Security number, your bank account information, and more, and now Musk and his minions have all that information. And the Republicans in Congress are fine with that. They lack the political courage to protect us.

Nancy Sanger, Longmont

Musk volunteered to help taxpayers

I find it very amusing that the Democrats are calling for the firing of Elon Musk. He isn’t an employee; he’s a volunteer. He takes no salary.

Can you not find it in your hearts and minds to wonder why he is doing what he’s doing? He wants to make sure we get the most bang for our taxpayer dollars. He is finding massive frivolous spending, waste and fraud, which we have all railed against for years.

We have got to get government spending under control if we are to succeed as a country. Hello?

Kay Robbins, Denver

How can we harness the power of “no”

Re: “Silence is dangerous. Time to say “Hell, no.” Feb. 6 commentary

To be blunt, I and my circle of friends and direct family have been saying “no” since 2015. “No” to those preposterous GOP primaries, where nobody knew how to beat Donald Trump. “No” to the media’s attempt to maintain some credibility while hosting the presidential debates with Hilary Clinton and then with Kamala Harris. “No” to the idea of using laser technology or bleach to protect my body against the pandemic. “No” to the notion that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un somehow were really good guys. And “no” to his eventual control over a once-credible political party that, while it didn’t always check all my boxes, offered a much-needed balance to achieving a sustainable democracy.

I said “no” with my vote, with honest discussions or comments when I felt I had to, and with service to my community. And for the past two months, yes, I have turned off the news while I attempt to reconcile what the hell just happened and how I go forward. What can I do to make a difference? I have lost friends over this.

There are many, I believe, who wake up, turn on the television, and laugh their keesters off because this is exactly what they want. I am still proud to be an American, but how do I say “no” to all of this in a way that will do some good?

Gary Rauchenecker, Golden

“First they came …”

First they came for the undocumented, and I did not speak out — because I was not undocumented.

Then they came for the transgender, and I did not speak out — because I was not transgender.

Then they came for federal employees, and I did not speak out — because I was not a federal employee.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

Mark Vanderbrook, Morrison
Editor’s note: Based on the post-World War II work  “First They Came,” by Martin Niemöller.

Enforcement is warranted when construction work is active

Re: “State to use photo radar cameras,” Feb. 3 news story

CDOT announced it will start using photo radar in construction zones for speed enforcement. Will this enforcement be on roadways where work is actually being done? Driving around the metro area and the state, I encountered countless construction projects, but no work was being done. Speed enforcement by cameras or actual police officers should be done when work is actually occurring by CDOT. Otherwise, let����ap call this what it is: another way for the Democratic party to fine/tax people.

Jeff Jasper, Westminster

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The poll comes as the national Democratic Party searches for a path forward in the wake of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to now-President Donald Trump in November. The strength of Republicans’ identification with working-class issues is a warning shot for a party that’s lost ground across the country.

In Colorado, where Democrats backslid slightly but largely maintained their recent gains in November, the results — funded and trumpeted by a centrist group — also hammer upon now-familiar divisions between the party’s left and moderate wings over how to consolidate and exercise Democrats’ reliable position atop state government.

“It is true that the Democratic Party in Colorado is not a monolith,” said Kyle Saunders, a political scientist at Colorado State University. “It is not an ideological monolith — it����ap a very diverse set of groups in coalition to support the Democratic cause. And while progressives want to pull the party further to the left, the concern over maintaining the Democratic advantage in Colorado is genuine, and I think that����ap what this poll is trying to establish.”

“Whether it does so effectively,” he continued, “is up to the reader.”

The poll, conducted by Keating Research, found that 45% of respondents had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, against 51% who viewed the party negatively. Just 37% had a favorable view of the Republican Party, versus 56% who viewed it unfavorably.

The poll was conducted in mid-December on behalf of One Main Street, a centrist Democratic dark-money group that doesn’t reveal most of its donors. Keating surveyed 1,225 Colorado voters, and the margin of error was 3.5 percentage points. Keating is a Colorado-based firm that generally polls Democratic issues.

The vast majority of self-identified Democrats and Republicans in the survey said they supported the party to which they aligned. But unaffiliated voters — who make up a plurality of Colorado voters — had a negative view of both parties, though they were more favorable toward Democrats than Republicans.

Still, a majority of unaffiliated voters — and a majority of voters overall — said Republicans better represented the working class and were better at addressing the economy and inflation than Democrats.

Voters also said the economy and cost of living, housing and immigration were the top issues facing the state; Republican and suburban voters, though, said they were primarily focused on immigration.

As for what motivated voters in the Nov. 5 presidential election, the economy was the top issue, ahead of immigration and a three-way tie of anti-Trump sentiment, candidates’ character and women’s rights.

Though the poll included some questions about Republicans and Trump, the bulk of its results were devoted to the Democratic Party, its November losses and voters’ views on where the party should go from here — an ongoing debate in which One Main Street has a well-established position.

“What we really learned on this poll is it showed that Democrats really need to focus on kitchen-table, bread-and-butter economic issues,” said Andrew Short, the executive director of One Main Street. “That folks are looking for leaders to really come together and find collaborative solutions to the big issues that we’re facing, that they’re sick of the political theatrics and those focused more on their Twitter likes than actually crafting good policy.”

“More work to do,” party chair says

Shad Murib, the chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, said Democrats had “more to work to do” on “putting its money where its mouth is” with voters on economic issues.

He pointed to a recent of American voters that found the national Democratic Party was deeply unpopular — even more so than among Colorado voters.

In that way, the Keating poll was something like good-ish news for Colorado Democrats, Murib said: The party’s brand in the state hasn’t suffered as much as it has nationally, even after six years of firm Democratic control, and November brought mixed results.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo lost her reelection bid to the House of Representatives, meaning Colorado’s eight congressional seats are now evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. But Democrats in the statehouse maintained their firm legislative majorities, though they lost their supermajority control in the House in a nail-biter contest in El Paso County.

Still, Murib said he was concerned about Colorado voters’ identification of the Republican Party with the working class. A plurality of the poll’s participants also said Democrats lost in November because the party was out of touch with voters.

“That’s something I’ve been really concerned with and (that) is the canary in the coal mine from the national election,” Murib said of the November results. “The public is seeing Republicans as best representing the working class and the poor, and Democrats as representing elites. That����ap why we’re focused intensely on economic abundance for all.”

As much as the poll showed warning signs for the Democratic Party, it — and in particular the questions it posed to voters — also served as another shot in the ongoing fight among the party’s moderate and progressive factions. That fight isn’t new, but it’s become an existential struggle nationally as the party tries to gather itself after November’s losses.

The battle is also increasingly prominent in Colorado as gubernatorial candidates begin to jockey to replace Gov. Jared Polis in two years.

The poll asked voters, for instance, if they thought the Democratic Party should now tack “to the left,” “to the right” or toward “bridging the divide to find workable answers.” The last one is the position that One Main Street supports, and poll respondents overwhelmingly selected that option, too.

It also asked about general policy objectives like “building generational wealth” and creating “high-quality jobs,” versus specific left-wing policy goals, like rent control and “free health care.”

“I think One Main Street has a financial interest in making sure that what they stand for appears to be popular — so, like any other poll, they’re trying to prove their value in the ecosphere,” Murib said.

New legislative caucus underlines fight

One Main Street is no stranger to the struggle for party influence: The group spent millions of dollars last summer to back the more moderate candidates in several Democratic primaries. It also recently helped launch the in the legislature, composed of several Democratic members it supported last year.

Since the launch, that caucus has started an accompanying group that allows it to raise money on its own — a move that raised eyebrows among other Democratic legislators.

Short, One Main Street’s executive director, said the poll’s “language was fair and focused on economic opportunity.”

Murib agreed that the Democratic Party needed to focus more on economic issues.

But there are more nuances to the Democratic coalition than were revealed in One Main Street’s poll, Saunders, the CSU political scientist, said. And “economic opportunity” means different things to different members of that coalition.

Case in point: Short said that to address the housing concerns identified in the group’s poll, One Main Street supported policies like construction-defects reform, which would make it more difficult to sue developers over construction problems in a bid to spur more condominium development.

He also pointed to this year’s , which would nudge state regulators to consider how air quality rules impact the workforces of the industries they regulate, like oil and gas. That measure, which is sponsored by the chair and co-chair of the “Opportunity Caucus,” is supported by energy and gas companies, like Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy, and opposed by environmental groups.

But Short was more lukewarm on the cost-of-living and housing policies that legislative Democrats have backed as priorities: bills to limit price increases on groceries, to lower hidden fees in housing and to ban the use of rent algorithms that drive up housing costs.

Those policies, Short said, needed to be “carefully reviewed” to ensure they don’t have “unintended consequences.”

Although voters enshrined abortion access in the state’s constitution last fall, some Coloradans still feel uneasy about the permanency of reproductive health care and gender-affirming care under President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration. With the Republican leader set to take office for the second time on Monday, several Front Range residents told The Denver Post that they feared potential new constraints — like the specter of a federal abortion ban that would override protections in the state.

So they’re preemptively taking matters into their own hands.

Trump comes into office after his stance on abortion has shifted over the years. He took credit for the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade — the U.S. Supreme Court decision that had legalized abortion nationwide in 1973 — which was felled by five conservative justices in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Trump nominated three of them.

Since then, he’s proclaimed abortion to be an issue for states to sort out individually. And in October, Trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban — although he could face pressure from some GOP lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who are in favor of moving forward with national restrictions.

Trump’s promises haven’t reassured many Coloradans.

“Our freedoms are never guaranteed,” said Alison Friedman Phillips, the director of programs, policy and advocacy at the , which presses for gender, racial and economic equity. “In the changing federal context, we can understand why women are uncertain whether those rights will be protected.”

Michaela Ruppert, 32, is one of those women concerned about their reproductive rights. She’s known for a long time that she doesn’t want children.

“The potential of being forced to carry a child — that just is terrifying to me,” said Ruppert, who lives in Fort Collins. “That should not at all be something that the government should be deciding.”

So after conferring with a doctor, Ruppert plans to take a step beyond her current birth control method, an IUD inserted in the uterus, by scheduling later this year. That is a surgery to remove her fallopian tubes.

For her, it’s a solution to her pregnancy fears.

Reproductive health care “feels like it still could be taken away from me, even in Colorado,” Ruppert said. “Knowing that there’s this procedure that I could get done does make me feel better.”

After the Nov. 5 election, saw a 119% increase in appointments for intrauterine devices, or IUDs, and a 54% increase for birth control arm implants — two of the most effective forms of contraception, president and CEO Adrienne Mansanares said.

“What we saw was a community-wide response to the election and a desire to ensure that people can plan their own pregnancies,” she added.

But that doesn’t mean Colorado residents don’t intend to start families. At Planned Parenthood, the demand for family planning services continues to jump statewide after falling during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Mansanares said.

However, amid anxieties about federal action, opponents of abortion rights aren’t convinced that Trump will make the issue a priority.

“The Trump administration has said time and time again throughout their campaign cycle that the Dobbs decision returns the question of abortion access back to the states,” said Brittany Vessely, the executive director of the . “So there are no immediate plans to do anything to restrict abortion access on the federal level.”

Instead, she said, “there’s a lot of hyperbolic scare tactics going on.”

Vasectomies and morning-after pills

But women who have more questions than answers about the future of reproductive health care are making decisions now for themselves and their families.

Julia Marvin, 38, worries that contraception could be what’s limited next under Trump, now that abortion access has been curtailed in certain states after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

“What happens if different birth control methods are taken away?” she said.

Marvin and her 36-year-old husband have already made the decision against having kids, with climate change and other environmental factors dissuading him in particular. So after talking about it for over a year, she said, they plan to schedule him for , a sterilization procedure for men.

“Especially as we were getting closer to the election … we were starting to worry more about a Trump presidency,” said Marvin, a Thornton resident and a former state representative. “That sort of solidified things for us.”

Katy Moses, 49, plans to stock up on morning-after pills before Inauguration Day after discussing it with friends in a group text.

Moses had three kids before undergoing a tubal ligation, which is referred to colloquially as “getting your tubes tied.” But now, she’s fretting about safeguards for her teenage daughter.

At age 19, Moses had an abortion as a college freshman in Kansas, with the support of her then-boyfriend. “We were able to be safe. We were able to be dealt with in a medical facility that was clean,” said Moses, who lives in Evergreen.

However, with the ongoing politicization of women’s health issues, “it just feels like we’ve just stalled,” Moses said.

At Planned Parenthood, Mansanares says its inventory is fully stocked, and a patient can walk out of its pharmacies with a year’s supply of birth control. But she recommends speaking with a medical provider instead of amassing medication.

Larger concerns about health care access

Jamie Traeger, a transgender man, is concerned about future access to gender-affirming care, such as hormones and permanent sterilization, and the level of coverage by insurance. Traeger, 35, lives in Colorado Springs, and his husband is a military officer.

With Trump’s second term approaching, Traeger says some of his friends in the trans community are considering hysterectomies, which would surgically remove their uteruses. The reason: Sterilization is a more foolproof way to avoid pregnancy than IUDs or tubal ligation, Traeger said.

“For many of us, pregnancy is something that does not align with our goals for our body, our goals for our families,” he said. “There’s always a real urgency about permanent birth control.”

He had his own hysterectomy done in 2016 — although TRICARE, the military health care program, can make coverage of gender-affirming surgeries difficult, Traeger said.

Every week, he injects himself with testosterone as part of his hormone replacement therapy. If he was forced to stop, he said, then “that would be really dangerous for my health” by potentially affecting his bones.

For now, “the uncertainty of it all is just — it’s mind boggling,” Traeger said. So he and his husband are trying to stay in Colorado for its health care options, instead of pursuing other career opportunities around the country.

Some women, including those who plan to have children, remain uneasy about the prospect of a federal abortion ban.

Stephanie Lang, 36, wants a child. But before she and her husband, Andrew, make that choice, “we’re going to have to see what the political climate is,” she said. “We’re gonna have to see: Do our Colorado rights protect us in all these different situations?”

For her, it’s a heavier decision to make under Trump than it would have been under Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate who lost the presidential election.

When Lang decides to get pregnant, she aims to use genetic testing. If the results detect potential disabilities, then she intends to abort the pregnancy.

“You have no idea how much something like that impacts you for the rest of your life — not just in terms of all the extra labor you have to do, but all the finances as well,” said Lang, who lives in Denver. “It’s not just black and white when it comes to delivering a child.”

Being “in this weird limbo place”

Emily Burke-Weiss, 38, is trying to have another baby. She and her husband, who live in Denver, are already parenting a 2-year-old son.

Last November, at nine weeks pregnant, tragedy struck: Burke-Weiss found out during a scan that her fetus no longer had a heartbeat. Experiencing what’s known as a “missed miscarriage,” she either could wait to expel it naturally or could get an abortion.

Burke-Weiss opted to undergo a dilation and curettage, which is a surgical abortion. “I needed all the care that is banned in so many places,” she said.

If she ever found herself in the same position again, Burke-Weiss depicted herself as nervous to self-administer abortion pills, preferring the experienced hands of a doctor. Considering the possibility of a nationwide abortion ban, Burke-Weiss said: “I would be terrified if I was in this situation and lived in a country where I didn’t have access to it.”

For now, she’s waiting to see what happens over the next four years.

“I was pregnant when Roe was overturned, and I now feel like I’m trying to get pregnant in a time when we still don’t know the clear path of reproductive health,” Burke-Weiss said. “That puts me in this weird limbo place.”