One is a military veteran who pitches himself as a lifelong civic servant and recently tossed his name in the hat. The other is a political newbie who emphasizes his family’s deep Colorado roots and entered the race more than a year ago.

Both candidates — and — said in interviews that they decided to seek the Democratic nomination in the June 30 primary to challenge freshman U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd in response to overreach and corruption they see in the Trump administration. With little difference in their policy platforms — Kelloff even claimed Romero copied his — voters will have to look to their backgrounds to decide.

“This particular district is very large … it’s all these disparate economies: farming, ranching, tourism and steel production,” Romero said. “Because of all that, it’s hard to find some single thread that pulls everyone together. … (Voters) need to see someone that they can trust and they need to see a part of themselves in the candidate before them.”

Colorado’s 3rd District covers nearly half of the state, swooping from the desert and canyons of the Western Slope to the high mountains in southern Colorado and the southern end of the Front Range in Pueblo.

Larger than the entire state of Pennsylvania, the rural district encompasses 27 of the state’s 64 counties and takes in vastly different towns, including Aspen, Grand Junction, San Luis and Durango.

The district in recent years has leaned Republican, though voter data show 23% of the district’s voters are affiliated as Democrats, 26% as Republicans, while nearly half have no party identification.

The district has not been represented by a Democrat since 2011, when former U.S. Rep. John Salazar lost to Republican Scott Tipton. Tipton was then ousted in the 2020 Republican primary by Lauren Boebert, who in 2024 moved across the state to instead represent the 4th Congressional District.

In the 2024 election, President Donald Trump won the 3rd District by a 10-point margin.

But voting tallies show that Republicans’ hold on the district is not absolute. In both 2022 and 2024, Democrat Adam Frisch came close to clinching the seat. The Aspen businessman lost to Boebert in 2022 by less than 546 votes. In 2024, Hurd won the seat with 51% of votes — nearly 20,000 more votes than Frisch, who earned 46% of the vote.

Seizing on frustration with Trump

Both Kelloff and Romero hope to ride the momentum of what they see as rising frustration with the Trump administration to flip the seat back to blue.

“We need to bring back leadership in Washington,” Kelloff said. “I’m running to hopefully lead with moral clarity. I think this is the most corrupt administration that we’ve ever seen in the history of America.”

Both candidates listed addressing the rising cost of living as their top priority. Other goals include protecting public lands and Western Slope water interests.

“There is an absolute public outcry on affordability and the cost of living and making ends meet for rural families and working-class families,” Romero said. “What our current administration has done is absolutely ignore that.”

In interviews, both candidates emphasized their ties to Colorado and — despite their business success and affluence as adults — more humble upbringings.

Kelloff’s family has lived in the district since 1893, though he grew up outside of Washington, D.C. He traveled back frequently to the Centennial State to visit family before moving to Aspen permanently six years ago.

Kelloff, 52, spent 30 years in the telecommunications industry and also co-founded Armada Skis. While he’s never won elected office, Kelloff said he has decades of experience forging deals and leading large teams in the business realm.

He announced his candidacy more than a year before primary ballots were set to be mailed out — starting today — so that he could spend time traveling the state, talking to voters. By January, he had visited all 27 counties in the district.

“I’ve been in this race for almost 13 months,” Kelloff said. “To win this seat, to flip this seat, you need a fighter to take on Jeff Hurd and win. That’s why I got in 13 months early to do the hard work.”

Romero, 61, grew up on the Gulf Coast of Texas and, after 11 years in the military, moved to the Roaring Fork Valley in 1996. He leads that has sold more than $50 million worth of property since 2023. His wife, Margaret, has worked as a local schoolteacher in the Roaring Fork Valley for 25 years.

Romero, who entered the race four months before the primary, emphasized his history of serving on local boards: two terms on the Aspen City Council, two terms on the Aspen School District board, two terms on the local fire district board and, now, serving his second term on the local water and sanitation board. He also served for six months as the chief economic development director in then-Gov. John Hickenlooper’s cabinet in 2011 and for three years on the state economic development commission.

“Twelve months of driving around in the district and taking some pictures here and there is all well and good,” Romero said of Kelloff’s campaigning, “but that does not erase the body of work and the experiences and know-how we’ve achieved over the last 30 to 35 years — sorry.”

Hurd is ‘not a headline-grabber’

Frisch, the Democrat who previously tried to win the seat, endorsed Romero on the day he announced his campaign. The two men served on the Aspen City Council together and the address for Romero’s campaign is the same as that for the Frisch now runs.

Whichever candidate wins the Democratic primary will need to educate voters on Hurd’s voting record, said Nick Voss, the chair of The incumbent operates more quietly than his predecessor, whose controversial statements and personal life routinely made news.

“He’s not a headline-grabber, like Lauren Boebert is,” Voss said.

This year’s race , who previously endorsed a Republican candidate looking to challenge Hurd in the primary after Hurd split from the Republican majority on tariff policy.

However, Trump in March re-endorsed Hurd and said he convinced the other Republican running against him, Hope Scheppelman, to and instead work in his administration, where she as an adviser for the federal .

“Together with (the Scheppelmans), we decided that Congressman Jeff Hurd, of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, should in no way, shape, or form, be impeded from winning the District in that the Democrat alternative is a DISASTER for our Country,” Trump wrote in a March 20 social media post.

In April, a former state representative announced he would challenge Hurd in the Republican primary. served in the state House, representing Fremont County from 2021 to 2023.

Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney, , winning 41% of the vote to Hanks’ 29% in a crowded open race.

As of the most recent federal finance reporting, through March 31, Hurd had raised $3 million, compared to about $1 million by Kelloff and about $500,000 by Romero.

Both Democratic challengers have loaned significant money to their campaigns: Kelloff loaned $450,000 of his own money to his campaign and Romero loaned $280,000 to his.

Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.; Nancy Mace, R-S.C.; and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., drove the resignation last month of two of their colleagues accused of misconduct: Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. Last fall, Boebert, Mace and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., provided key votes to compel the Justice Department to release its files on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein — despite Trump’s pressuring them to back off. These women, along with Florida Rep. Kat Cammack, founder of the Republican Women’s Caucus, have been pressing to punish Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican who has been subject to a restraining order at the request of an ex-girlfriend.

The last time this issue shook Capitol Hill, in the #MeTooCongress moment of the first Trump administration, Democratic women led the charge, until partisan polarization and backlash killed the momentum. Since then, the GOP, dominated by MAGA machismo, has only grown more antagonistic toward women’s rights and more indulgent of men behaving badly.

This is precisely why Luna et al. are the best equipped to usher in a #Me2.0 in Congress. Their established MAGA-ness gives them the credibility to push leadership on awkward issues. And they are less likely than more moderate colleagues to be dismissed as scolds or man-haters. If these crusaders want to do more than merely pick off a few bad apples, this political moment offers them a rare opening to make progress on one of Congress’ ugliest, most entrenched cultural problems.

Doing so could serve them politically. If anyone knows how to grab the spotlight and keep outrage alive, it����ap MAGA lawmakers. All the better for their iconoclastic brand, their status as disrupters, if they visibly annoy their party’s establishment.

Luna clearly takes pride in prodding leadership. Along with targeting sexual misconduct, she is one of the House’s loudest advocates of a ban on congressional stock trading.

“I’ve been calling out both parties for it, and I won’t stop,” she said of her accountability campaign in an interview well before the Swalwell scandal broke. (Swalwell has denied the assault allegations against him.) She compared herself to a “Jiminy Cricket” perched on colleagues’ shoulders. “I always am giving them correct advice.”

Luna is mindful of the need to push back against criticisms of the GOP as anti-woman. “We do represent a lot of women, businesswomen, young women, stay-at-home moms, et cetera,” she told me. When they learn of misconduct allegations, “and it����ap not dealt with accordingly, it����ap a poor reflection on the party.”

The accountability crew is working across the aisle to advance their cause — a rare and politically touchy move in these polarized times. A heartbeat after news about the Swalwell allegations broke, Luna was coordinating with New Mexico Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, head of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, to oust both him and Gonzales. (The latter first denied then admitted to having an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.) “We worked closely together over that frantic weekend” organizing expulsion resolutions, Fernández told me. “We think we had the votes, which is why we think they both resigned.” Last Wednesday, Fernández and Cammack announced a new bipartisan effort to expand and improve protections against misconduct.

Being outspoken comes with political risk. The original #MeToo surge brought down lawmakers from both parties. But in September 2018, the movement became absorbed into the nation’s most heated, high-stakes political brawl: Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination fight, dominated by allegations that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford in the early 1980s.

Republicans hardened against the movement. Even some Democrats began wondering if it had gone too far. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., was the first senator to call for her colleague Al Franken, D-Minn., to step down over allegations many people considered slight. In political circles, Franken’s ouster became shorthand for the movement����ap overreach, and Gillibrand became a target of grumbling in her own party. During her failed presidential bid in 2020, her campaign lamented that lingering resentment over the Franken episode had damaged her fundraising. In more recent years, the senator has kept a lower profile on the topic — as have most lawmakers.

The MAGA women face their own challenges. Most notably, they tap-dance around Trump’s disturbing record when it comes to women. Mace, Boebert and Luna recently told The New York Times’ Annie Karni that they do not believe the many and varied accusations of sexual misbehavior that have been leveled at Trump — which presumably includes his being found liable of sexual abuse in court. And while their beef with the Justice Department over the Epstein files displeased the president, the women did not directly attack him.

They may well feel compelled to give Trump a pass to preserve credibility with their team. Greene went all in on her feud with the president and wound up resigning her seat in January. This dynamic complicates — but does not rule out — their core goal: changing the toxic culture in Congress. “There is a sense of entitlement and untouchable-ness, if that����ap a word, that comes over some members,” noted former Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who pushed through the #MeToo reforms in 2018.

High-profile campaigns to expose misbehaving members help crack that aura of privilege. There has been a renewed focus of late on misconduct allegations, including the House Ethics Committee’s investigation into Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., who has been accused of inappropriate conduct toward young staff members. (He has denied wrongdoing.)

So far, Republican leaders seem most interested in tightening enforcement. Among the top reform ideas with bipartisan support being discussed: overhauling the House Ethics Committee. “It����ap set up to take forever,” said Speier, who served on the committee. “They need to come up with a swifter way of moving through these complaints.”

More broadly, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights has been recommending for decades that Congress establish whistleblower protections comparable to those in the executive branch.

And there is widespread agreement that reporting incidents should be easier. “It is so complicated for a woman to know where to go,” said Fernández. Why, she asked, doesn’t Congress have a hotline for sexual assault and misconduct? “A single number you call where somebody is going to answer the phone, and they’re on your side.” Speier, who has been consulting with Fernández and other former colleagues, noted that there are also apps on the market that could facilitate anonymous reporting.

Now is the time to push. Republicans are anxious about their president����ap widespread unpopularity, and party leaders cannot afford to be seen as protecting congressional wrongdoers, especially in a high-stakes election year. Reformers have leverage — if they keep the heat on.

I asked Luna if she worried about alienating her colleagues or leaders or getting labeled a bad team player.

“No. I’m cool with being Jiminy Cricket,” she insisted. “Everyone loves Jiminy Cricket. He saves Pinocchio.”

Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for ����ap. She has covered Washington and politics since the Clinton administration. This article originally appeared in .

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Evans brought in more than $1.2 million during the first three months of 2026, according to federal campaign finance reports due Wednesday. He ended March with more than $3.4 million in the bank. That’s an eye-watering sum, easily surpassing the roughly $2 million that Evans’ Democratic predecessor, then-U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, had gathered at the same point in early 2024.

Evans has no primary challenger, meaning he won’t need to start seriously spending his cash until after his Democratic opponent emerges from the June 30 primary.

In other federal races, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper significantly outraised a state senator challenging him in the Democratic primary, while another incumbent — Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert — was outraised by an even greater factor by her only remaining Democratic challenger in the state’s most conservative-leaning district.

The race for Evans’ 8th Congressional District seat, which sits in a rural-suburban area north of Denver, will be among the most closely watched contests in the country this fall. Two of the Democrats hoping to topple Evans have started marshalling their own financial resources.

State Rep. Manny Rutinel posted a strong quarter, hauling in more than $952,000 to bring his cash-on-hand total to more than $1.76 million. He raised more — and has banked more — than his former state House colleague, Shannon Bird, who joined the race a few months after Rutinel last year.

Bird raised nearly $567,000 in early 2026, and she ended the quarter with just over $1 million to play with as the primary season entered its final three-month stretch.

The third Democrat in the race, Marine veteran Evan Munsing, has outlasted several more established candidates — including Caraveo, who mounted a brief comeback campaign last year. But his fundraising has slipped farther behind Rutinel’s and Bird’s: Munsing raked in $115,000 last quarter, and he spent almost double that.

As a consequence, his cash pile has been halved, from the $213,000 at the end of 2025 to $108,000 at the end of March.

Between the three Democrats and Evans, the CD8 candidates raised more than $2.8 million over the last three months. Between them, the four candidates have nearly $6.4 million on hand.

More than half of that pile lies, waiting, in Evans’ coffers.

“I’m grateful for the outpouring of support from Coloradans who are ready to keep fighting for safer communities, a stronger economy and a more secure future,” Evans said in a statement Wednesday.

Here’s what else was revealed by the latest federal campaign finance reports, which came out just after the major parties’ primary ballots were finalized through assembly votes and petitioning.

Hickenlooper’s haul grows for primary challenge

In his Senate reelection race, Hickenlooper raised nearly $1.4 million last quarter, the first full reporting period since his primary challenger, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, entered the race. That’s more than he raised in the prior quarter.

Though he spent more than $1.2 million in the early part of 2026, the incumbent Democrat will still enter primary season with a hefty $4 million in the bank.

Gonzales, meanwhile, has reported more anemic fundraising. She raised more than $264,000 this past quarter, compared with the nearly $180,000 she posted in her first month in late 2025, showing a slowing pace. Her most recent total in the bank sat at just over $114,000.

In a blog post Wednesday, Gonzales acknowledged that her campaign was “living paycheck to paycheck.” But she appeared undaunted and said she raised $130,000 in the first week of April, after the reporting period’s end.

DeGette’s balance grows as challenger picks up pace

A different primary challenge is brewing in Denver’s 1st Congressional District.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who’s been in Congress for nearly 30 years, is facing two Democratic opponents: University of Colorado Regent Wanda James and Melat Kiros, a lawyer and doctoral student who last month beat DeGette in an assembly nominating vote.

Whether that victory translates to an incumbent-toppling result in June remains to be seen. DeGette raised more than $263,000 last quarter, a bit more than she’d raised at the end of 2025. Her cash-on-hand total ticked up, too, and now sits at $636,000.

Kiros also saw a boost, bringing in more than $174,000, double her prior quarter’s total. With $118,000 in the bank, she trailed DeGette’s total entering primary season.

James’ fundraising went the opposite way. The regent raised more than $72,000 last quarter, below her fourth-quarter total last year. Her spending also ticked up, bringing her cash on hand down to just more than $54,000.

Boebert challenger keeps raking in cash. Will it matter?

Among Colorado’s incumbents in Congress, Boebert has long been a fundraising lightning rod. That remains true, even as she settles into the comfortably conservative 4th Congressional District, which covers Colorado’s Eastern Plains as well as Douglas County, after a district switch in the last election.

Eileen Laubacher, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, raised more than $2 million for the second consecutive quarter. After a big spend of $1.5 million, she still ended the quarter with more than $3 million in her campaign’s pocket. Another Democratic candidate, Trisha Calvarese, also had raised big money in her second run against Boebert before she dropped out two weeks ago.

Boebert, in contrast, raised just under $90,000 in the last three months, and she reported $160,000 on hand in late March.

It’s important to remember that Boebert now represents a district where, in a 2021 analysis, by more than 26 percentage points. In 2024, Boebert’s win wasn’t even half that — and .

Hurd amasses cash to defend Western Slope seat

In Boebert’s old 3rd Congressional District, her erstwhile Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, is looking to defend a seat that’s reliably, if not comfortably, red. Hurd raised more than $609,000 last quarter, bringing his war chest to just under $2 million.

He also picked up a primary opponent at the Colorado Republican Party assembly last week — former state Rep. Ron Hanks — but his fundraising advantage is hefty.

Two Democrats are jockeying to take on Hurd in November. Alex Kelloff, a Snowmass businessman, has been in the race longer. He raised $192,000 last quarter, adding a bit to his cash-on-hand total of $458,000.

Kelloff’s newcomer primary opponent, fellow businessman Dwayne Romero, raised more than $505,000 in his first month in the race, and, after expenses, had slighty more on hand than Kelloff.

Democrat brings in cash to flip Colorado Springs district

Colorado’s other Jeff among Republican congressmen — Hurd’s fellow freshman, U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank —  raised $345,000 last quarter as he looks to defend the conservative 5th Congressional District. Crank’s war chest now tops $1.1 million.

His likely opponent, Democrat Jessica Killin, brought in nearly $670,000, bringing her on-hand total to more than $1.5 million. Army veteran Joe Reagan, who is challenging Killin for the Democratic nomination, raised $86,000 and ended the first quarter with $33,000 in the bank.

Democrats have been targeting the district, which — after Boebert’s current seat — is the most conservative in the state.

Incumbents’ cash hauls

While DeGette looks to ward off her primary opponents, Colorado’s three other Democratic members of Congress are without well-known Republican challengers. But they’re still slowly building up their campaign bank accounts.

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, of the Boulder-based 2nd Congressional District, brought his cash on hand to just under $3 million last quarter. U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, of Aurora’s 6th Congressional District, raked in nearly $940,000 to start 2026 (which, his campaign said, was his largest single-quarter haul), and he had more than $2.5 million under his campaign mattress.

U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, whose 7th Congressional District covers the center of the state up through parts of metro Denver, had more than $915,000 on hand.

Those sums will allow the Democrats to support not only their own campaigns but others’ races and causes, too. Crow’s latest campaign finance report listed a nearly $60,000 contribution to the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, for instance, while Neguse gave $35,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The editor and publisher of the newspaper in rural northwest Nebraska looked in amazement at the resume for her newest reporter, A. Marie Hamilton: multiple degrees from a well-known journalism school. Seventeen years working for the . Several statewide awards for her coverage.

“We were all super excited,” Perez said of the April 2023 hire. “Like, wow, why would someone with that much experience, why would she be here?”

Slowly, though, Perez realized that not everything was as it seemed. Hamilton had a problem with authority, Perez said, and ruffled feathers with the town’s police chief and school board. She appeared to sometimes sleep in the office. Nobody ever met her husband, who she said was a district manager for a local cable company.

“We heard so many different things,” Perez said. “It turned out to be this melange of (expletive).”

In fact, A. Marie Hamilton wasn’t even her real name. Those bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University? Never attained. No evidence exists that she worked for 17 years at USA Today-affiliated newspapers.

“In seeking truth, you have to get both sides of the story,” Hamilton said in her at the Nebraska paper, citing the quote .

This is the other side, a story rife with inconsistencies, false claims and, now, a slew of felony charges that could land her in prison for decades. A. Marie Hamilton is actually April Marie Morganroth. Before that, she was April McClellan. At various points in her career, the journalist reinvented herself to start fresh in new states, including Colorado.

Wyoming prosecutors last month charged Morganroth, 40, with 20 felonies in two separate criminal cases in which she is alleged to have falsified documents and lied under oath — charges that relate to her alleged acts as a private citizen, not as a journalist. But Morganroth’s previous stops in at least four states and numerous publications were also marked by falsehoods and fabrications about her background, The Denver Post found.

She was fired from a Boulder newspaper for inventing quotations and misrepresenting the stories of sources she had interviewed about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In Arizona, she was convicted of forgery after authorities said she falsified documents as she sought housing. In Wyoming, she claimed to be a muckraking reporter with a Ph.D. who was also in law school. She never sought either degree.

Now she’s facing decades in prison, leaving the communities she covered wondering: Who was April Morganroth?

“There are people who are liars, people who are chronic liars, and then there is mental illness,” Perez said.

Two journalism ethics experts told The Post that while there have been high-profile examples of reporters caught ���ǰ���, they had never heard of someone committing these ethical violations and then altering their identity to continue practicing the trade elsewhere.

“It’s safe to say this is historically unprecedented in the modern era,” said Mark Feldstein, the Richard Eaton Chair of Broadcast Journalism at the University of Maryland.

None of the editors interviewed by The Post who worked with Morganroth outside of Boulder said they found fabrications in her work, and the newspaper could not independently fact-check all of her published stories.

Morganroth, who is free on bail in the two criminal cases, did not return messages from The Post seeking comment.

‘It was always the perfect story’

In her writings and website biographies, Morganroth extolled the virtues of freedom of speech, of seeking the truth no matter the roadblocks and of adhering to strong ethical values.

She wrote that she harps on honesty and accuracy as a foundation for earning and maintaining public trust. Her work must be consistent and principled, fair and independent.

“I aspire to bring truth, integrity and a personal touch to American journalism, unlike what we’ve seen since its early conception,” Morganroth once wrote on her .

But peel back the lofty rhetoric, and a different side of Morganroth emerges.

In 2007, Morganroth — then known by her birth name April McClellan — was charged with cashing a $5,000 welfare check in Arizona meant for her brother, according to court documents. She failed to respond to the bank’s efforts to seek restitution, authorities said, and attempts to locate her were unsuccessful.

“She then withdrew the $5,000 and disappeared,” investigators said in a criminal complaint.

McClellan pleaded guilty to one count of forgery, a class four felony, and was sentenced to probation.

In March 2008, McClellan was charged with three counts of felony forgery after Arizona authorities accused her of forging a court document, a Department of Corrections employment statement and a document from her previous landlord as she sought an apartment for rent, according to an arrest affidavit.

She pleaded guilty to one count and received probation.

McClellan, after her marriage to Scott Morganroth, started going by April Morganroth.

Bethany Barnes met April Morganroth around 2010 when the two worked at a Sears department store in the Phoenix suburbs, and the two quickly became close friends.

Over time, however, Barnes realized that it became hard to trust her friend’s word. Morganroth said things about her family that Barnes later learned were false. She would say she couldn’t hang out for a certain reason, only for Barnes to find out that Morganroth was somewhere else.

“She was always making herself look bigger than what was actually the case,” Barnes told The Post. “It was just a little bit of everything. You could tell she was being dishonest.”

These larger-than-life tales grew harder to tolerate, Barnes said. Eventually, the two lost touch.

“It was always the perfect story,” she said. “She did it very well. She lied very well.”

Morganroth graduated from , a community college, in December 2013 with an associate’s degree in digital photography. At the same time, she was finishing her first full semester at Arizona State’s .

On her blog, Morganroth promoted her services as a commercial and wedding photographer, showcasing her work in local galleries.

During her school years, she accumulated bylines for ASU’s student newspaper, appeared on the school’s radio station and did a , the state’s largest news organization, covering a variety of breaking news stories, including fires, floods and crime. A university spokesperson told The Post that Morganroth was enrolled at ASU at one time but never completed her degree.

Fabricated quotes and a retraction

In 2020, Morganroth moved with her husband and three children to Colorado, where she got a job in the joint newsroom of the Boulder and , newspapers owned by , which also owns The Post.

Her author page shared little in common with reality: She claimed she had been a newspaper journalist for nearly 20 years — even though she was just 35 at the time. She referred to her role at the Arizona Republic as a “full-time writer and multimedia journalist,” but an archived version of the from that time doesn’t show her name. Morganroth, on her , called it an internship.

She said she graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State.

On Sept. 11, 2021, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Daily Camera and Times-Call by Morganroth featuring reflections from locals who had been impacted by the day’s horrors.

Morganroth interviewed three Boulder residents, including a naval intelligen­ce analyst who recounted a harrowing story in which, she wrote, he watched Marines perform a heroic rescue of children from a nursery in the Pentagon. She quoted a flight attendant who, she said, was scheduled to work on 9/11 but switched her plans at the last minute. And she detailed the supposed experiences of a mental health clinician who, she wrote, didn’t know whether his daughter was alive or dead on Sept. 11.

It turned out that the three individuals said very little of what Morganroth wrote.

A few weeks after its publication, the Daily Camera , saying in a lengthy editor’s note that the story “substantially misrepresented” statements from the three subjects and fabricated many of the quotations attributed to them. One of the sources called his purported quotes “fictional.”

“I was absolutely horrified — like blood-pressure-spiked horrified,” said Mark Pfundstein, the former naval intelligence analyst, in an interview with The Post. “I thought, ‘My God, what will my colleagues think about this?'”

Morganroth, after the retraction, was fired, according to a from one of her colleagues. Mitchell Byars, who covered courts and crime for the paper, called for more due diligence in the hiring process.

“I feel there were some frankly easily identifiable red flags that I brought up with editors after her hire,” he wrote. Byars did not identify those warning signs on social media and declined to be interviewed for this story.

Colleagues, though, had noticed that Morganroth frequently retweeted far-right conservatives on social media, including U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert. Standard social media policies at newspapers forbid this type of political activity.

John Vahlenkamp, one of the editors who retracted the story, declined to comment on his investigation into Morganroth’s work or her tenure in Boulder.

An incident like this could have ended Morganroth’s journalism career. Instead, she pivoted.

New state, new name

In 2022, Morganroth popped up in the Wyoming journalism scene under a new byline: A. Marie Hamilton.

She worked for the , a newspaper in a small community in southeast Wyoming near the Nebraska border, for roughly a year, according to a review of her bylines on the site. Current ownership could not confirm her exact employment dates.

Morganroth’s father, in text messages with Barnes, the friend from Arizona, suggested that he knew that his daughter was running from trouble.

Child protective services “from Colorado was on April; she ran to Cheyenne this time,” Bill McClellan wrote to Barnes in June 2022, according to texts reviewed by The Post. “She thinks it’s okay to keep pulling her lieing (sic) and (expletive). Not working for her, I’d say.”

A few months later, McClellan told Barnes that “they will catch her soon enough.” McClellan died in 2024.

In April 2023, Morganroth took the job in Sidney, Nebraska.

Perez, the editor and publisher there, said Morganroth appeared to be “super knowledgeable” with professional writing chops. The editor said she never worried about the content of her reporter’s work — and only recently learned about what happened at the Daily Camera.

Still, Morganroth was difficult to manage, Perez said.

“Nobody knew what she knew,” Perez said. “Her attitude was: everyone was stupid.”

Many details about her life, though, just didn’t add up. The cable company that her husband supposedly worked for advertised in the paper. So Perez asked about him. The company said they had no idea what she was talking about.

Only four months after getting to the state, Morganroth said she was putting in her two-week notice. Perez didn’t fight her. On her way out, Morganroth told colleagues that the Nebraska newspaper company was starting a new outfit in Cheyenne and that they had asked her to be the editor, Perez said. None of this was true.

“That level of lying and thinking you’ll get away with it that goes beyond telling falsehoods,” Perez said. “That’s where you live in your own reality.”

A slew of felony charges

Once again, Morganroth started anew.

She returned to Wyoming, landing a job at the in southeast Wyoming, an hour north of Cheyenne.

Her listed accolades just kept growing: She now boasted more than 25 years of journalism experience, despite being under 40. The paper, in its , said she previously worked for National Public Radio and iHeartMedia. The Post could find no evidence of these employment stints.

Morganroth, still going by “Marie Hamilton,” earned the nickname “Little Miss Fact-Checker” by her peers at Wyoming Press Association conventions, the paper said, for “always providing clarifying and enriching accurate information about various news topics in our state.”

She again falsely claimed to hold both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State, and said she was in the midst of obtaining a law degree from the University of Wyoming. A university spokesperson said she was never enrolled there.

After the Record-Times briefly ceased publication, Morganroth launched her own media outlet called the , an “independent, community-centered” news organization focused on southeast Wyoming.

Its stated values: honesty and accuracy, integrity, ethical and watchdog journalism. Its motto: “Independent. Local. Unafraid.”

“I am unafraid to hold the accountable — accountable — and I have faced my fair share of credible threats, attempts to intimidate, blackmail and discredit because I refuse to allow elected officials to have a get-out-of-jail-free card,” she wrote.

Her journalism, in practice, often blurred the line between objective news coverage and her own opinions.

On social media, Morganroth frequently posted her thoughts on gun rights, supposed corruption in the Democratic Party and President Donald Trump.

Morganroth took a particular interest in a planned near the town of Chugwater in southeast Wyoming. She published a on Nov. 25 — which she called an “investigation” — in which she falsely drew links between solar and wind farms and disabilities in children.

The story, published under a “Wyoming Sentinel Staff” byline, quoted a “Marie Hamilton” numerous times as an advocate for children with disabilities. Hamilton is listed on the news outlet’s website as the owner, publisher and managing editor. There’s no indication anyone else worked there.

Her involvement in the project, though, was about to get much more serious after she personally lobbied against the wind farm.

On March 9, prosecutors in Platte County, Wyoming, arrested Morgranroth and related to her opposition to the Chugwater energy project. Authorities allege the local journalist concocted letters of support from two area residents expressing their supposed objections to the project and lied under oath during a public hearing held by a state panel considering the proposal.

In a pre-hearing statement, she asserted she held three degrees from Arizona State, was pursuing a law degree, owned an unspecified local brand and operated various family ranching businesses in several states, an arrest affidavit states. She introduced herself as “Dr. Marie Hamilton.”

Two weeks after the initial charges, prosecutors in the same district against Morganroth. Authorities say she forged documents purporting to show that she had prequalified for a federal loan as she attempted to purchase a home in Chugwater, according to an arrest affidavit cited in local media reports.

Morganroth also claimed that she and her husband had been approved for a federal grant to do construction on the property to allow them to qualify for the loan, prosecutors alleged, submitting to the sellers supposed invoices from two companies for the work. Both companies told investigators and The Post that they never did jobs on this property.

“It was so impressive,” Jessica Logue, owner and CEO of Cowgirl Demolition and Excavating, told The Post. “She used my logo, faded it with an opaque excavator, and had all the verbiage right. I was like, ‘Who is this?'”

‘Detrimental to journalism’

Up until the arrest, people in southern Wyoming knew her as Marie Hamilton. When the news broke, editors at the papers she worked for expressed their disappointment and confusion.

Klark Byrd, managing editor at the Casper-based , said Morganroth covered the state legislature for a month this year, but she never filed paperwork with human resources to get paid. Despite numerous reminders, he said in an interview, the reporter wouldn’t submit her forms.

Boyd said he fact-checked her work and it was always clean.

“It’s always detrimental to journalism when someone in the profession breaks that kind of trust,” he said. “It wasn’t just public trust; she broke the trust of colleagues. It floored me when all the pieces finally came together.”

Lying about a journalist’s true identity calls into question what else they might have fabricated in their stories, the two journalism experts said, calling trust a bedrock principle for the industry.

“You expect this maybe out of priests who get bounced from parish to parish or doctors who get their licenses pulled in one state and move to another,” said Feldstein, the University of Maryland ethics expert. “But I’ve never heard of a journalist doing that.”

Publicly advocating on a topic you’re also covering as a reporter is a clear violation of journalism ethics, said Bob Steele, a former professor and director of the at DePauw University in Indiana. Since Morganroth served as the Wyoming Sentinel’s publisher, editor and reporter, there’s an even greater obligation to be honest, independent and fair in her reporting, he said.

Quoting oneself in the third person, meanwhile, breaks every rule of journalism, both experts said.

“It’s astounding,” Steele said. “It’s problematic to the nth degree.”

Steele and Feldstein said it’s important to characterize Morganroth’s behavior as an extreme outlier in the industry. The public, they said, should not see this as all that’s wrong with journalism. Even Pfundstein, the intelligence analyst whose story Morganroth mispresented in the 9/11 remembrance, said the incident did not shake his confidence or trust in the media.

Those who knew Morganroth previously said they weren’t entirely surprised by her alleged actions. They were just surprised she got caught.

“Part of me thinks she’ll wiggle out of this; that is her forte,” said Perez, the Nebraska editor. “Getting out of things is kind of her milieu. I’m popping some popcorn to see how she’ll get out of this one.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a Friday, Trump announced that he was re-endorsing U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd to hold the Western Slope seat he won two years ago. Trump also said he was going to hire Hurd’s conservative primary challenger, Hope Scheppelman, whom the president had endorsed just last month after Hurd opposed some of Trump’s tariffs.

Trump said he would bring Scheppelman and her husband into his administration, “in a capacity to be determined.”

“Together with (Scheppleman and her husband), we decided that Congressman Jeff Hurd, of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, should in no way, shape, or form, be impeded from winning the District in that the Democrat alternative is a DISASTER for our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Scheppelman, a former Colorado Republican Party official who had accused Hurd of being too liberal and siding with Democrats, said in a statement Friday afternoon that she was suspending her campaign after deciding to “put America First and do all I can to help ensure that the radical leaders in the Democrat Party do not take this seat.”

, Hurd thanked Trump for his support.

“I’m grateful for President Trump’s support and appreciate his efforts to unify Republicans in Colorado’s Third District,” he wrote. “The President and I share the same goals: securing the border, American energy dominance, and helping working families.”

Scheppelman included a dig at Hurd in her statement:  “Jeff Hurd now has the opportunity to correct his naive voting record and support President Trump, and our slim Republican majority in the U.S. House, in our shared battle to save the country we love. If he does not, I will run again in 2028 and defeat him in order to give the citizens of Colorado’s 3rd district, and all of America, the representation we deserve.”

The Republican president had Hurd in October, only to yank back his support in February.

Earlier that month, Hurd joined several other House Republicans in opposing tariffs on Canada in a floor vote, prompting Trump to throw his support behind Scheppelman and call Hurd a “RINO,” or Republican in name only.

The president had previously warned that any Republican who opposed his tariffs would “seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries.”

Trump’s re-endorsement comes as House Republicans cling to a bare majority, while polling ahead of November’s midterms show Democrats leading Republicans on a generic ballot by . Republicans are comfortably favored in the 3rd Congressional District, but the seat’s red hue is not guaranteed: Colorado Democrats put a scare into Western Slope Republicans in 2022, when Adam Frisch came fewer than 550 votes shy of beating U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.

The close call prompted Boebert to switch to the even more conservative 4th Congressional District on the state’s Eastern Plains, making way for the more moderate Hurd to march to a 5-point win in 2024.

This time, with Scheppelman’s withdrawal, Hurd is set to win an uncontested Republican primary in June. Two Democrats — Alex Kelloff and Dwayne Romero — are set to compete in that election for the chance to face Hurd in November.

Re: “Trump: Iran’s supreme leader has been killed,” March 1 news story

President Donald Trump’s call for Iranians to take to their dangerous streets to express their rights, to gain free speech and to create a new government is beyond irony when his goons beat, jail and kill Americans expressing their right of free speech in Minneapolis and across the United States. When the time comes in America, let us hope our citizens have the courage that he calls for in Iran’s citizens.

Jerry Swedlund, Denver

Another Republican war. This is the third war perpetrated by a Republican administration. In spite of what many Americans may have thought about President Joe Biden, I felt safe under his administration. And one of those reasons is because of his respect for our military and the lives and safety of our soldiers. I no longer feel safe, and I’m willing to bet I’m not alone.

Nancy Rife, Wheat Ridge

Astounding! We’re at war with Iran! Our Congress, the only branch of government with the power to declare war, didn’t declare war?

President Trump spoke for a long, long time last week on national TV and “forgot” to mention he was locked and loaded the military for immediate action. You’d think somebody would have “suggested” to our diplomatic corps to send their families back to the U.S. of A. for an overdue vacation ASAP. Now many are trapped, and the last time that happened, there were hostages held in Iran for 444 days.

Pity those service members due for discharge this week to be told to fuhgeddaboudit. I got nailed with a” for the convenience of the military” enlistment freeze back in 1961 and didn’t appreciate the surprise one bit.

Now I suppose Trump will suspend our elections until after it����ap over there.

Harry Puncec, Lakewood

If anyone needed confirming evidence that America is spiraling downward into a fully fledged autocracy, President Trump’s war with Iran provides it.

After having announced in June that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated,” it seems that it is now necessary to attack Iran again to destroy its missile program. The reason for this is to prevent Iran from launching non-existent nuclear weapons against the U.S. on rockets that do not currently exist.

But then Donald Trump does what he wants, when he wants, regardless of the facts, which is the definition of an autocrat. And if you believe that the mid-term elections in November will be “free and fair,” you may want to think again.

Guy Wroble, Denver

Rep. Boebert demonstrates a new low at Hillary Clinton deposition

Re: “Boebert leaks photo of Clinton testifying, disrupting deposition,” Feb. 27 news story

Rep. Lauren Boebert����ap despicable behavior at the Epstein deposition of the Clintons is an astounding new low, even for her. She is an embarrassment to all of us in the 4th congressional district and, for that matter, to all Coloradans. If it isn’t apparent already, she needs to resign or be replaced, as she is incapable of functioning as a competent adult in the halls of Congress.

Ralph Roberts, Roxborough

Everything keeps getting interesting when it comes to Lauren Boebert. Everyone on the House Oversight Committee should have known the rules for this closed-door session, as they were read at the beginning. It included no photographs.

Either she wasn’t paying attention, or she didn’t care. She took a photo or photos and passed them on to right-winger Benny Johnson. I didn’t realize that Johnson was into fashion, but  Boebert’s excuse was that she liked Hillary Clinton’s outfit, so she decided to share it with Johnson. When she wants to lie, she does it big.

Rep. Boebert should be excluded from the committee. In addition, President Trump and his wife should also be heard from under oath if the committee wanted to appear that they were not hypocrites. But that won’t happen.

Wayne Wathen, Centennial

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WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told members of Congress on Thursday that she had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s or Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes, starting two days of depositions that also will include former President Bill Clinton.

“I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein,” Hillary Clinton said in an opening statement she shared on social media. The closed-door deposition concluded after over six hours of questioning.

Her testimony was disrupted briefly Thursday after U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado shared a photo of the closed-door proceeding that was posted online.

Boebert sent a photo to a conservative influencer who posted it on social media, violating the committee’s rules for depositions. The that Clinton halted her testimony after learning about the image, and her attorneys objected and asked to pause the proceedings.

Her testimony resumed about 30 minutes later, the Times reported.

The closed-door depositions in the Clintons’ hometown of Chappaqua, a typically quiet hamlet north of New York City, come after  between the former high-powered Democratic couple and the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee. It will be the first time that a former president has been forced to testify before Congress.

Yet the demand for a reckoning over Epstein’s abuse of underage girls has become a near-unstoppable force on Capitol Hill and beyond.

, a Republican who has expressed regret that the Clintons are being forced to testify, bowed last year to pressure to release case files on Epstein, who killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. The Clintons, too,  after their offers of sworn statements were rebuffed by the Oversight panel and its chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., threatened  against them.

“Like every decent person,” Hillary Clinton added in her opening statement, “I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes.”

She had said that her husband had flown with Epstein for charitable trips but that she did not recall meeting Epstein. She had interacted with Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and confidant, at conferences hosted by the Clinton Foundation.

�Ѳ���ɱ����,��, also attended the 2010 wedding of their daughter, Chelsea Clinton. As she exited the event center where the deposition was held, Hillary Clinton told reporters that Maxwell had come to the wedding as a guest of someone else and that she had told the committee she only knew Maxwell “as an acquaintance.”

At the conclusion of the hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said Hillary Clinton had answered every question posed to her.

Republicans relish chance to question Clintons

Bill Clinton, however, has emerged as a top target for Republicans amid the political struggle over who receives the most scrutiny for their ties to Epstein.  of the former president were included in the first tranche of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice in January, including a number of him with women whose faces were redacted. Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein.

Comer also has pointed to Hillary Clinton’s work as secretary of state to address sex trafficking as another reason to insist on her deposition. Clinton defended her work to address sex trafficking around the world, saying that it remained important to help the millions of survivors of sex trafficking.

The committee’s investigation also has sought to understand why the Department of Justice under previous presidential administrations did not seek further charges against Epstein after a 2008 arrangement in which he pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl but avoided federal charges.

Hillary Clinton accused Comer of running a one-sided investigation that has failed to hold Trump and other Republican officials to account. “This institutional failure is designed to protect one political party and one public official,” she said.

�۱����, especially on the right, have swirled for years around the Clintons and their connections to Epstein and Maxwell, who argues she was convicted wrongfully. Republicans have long wanted to press the Clintons for answers.

Hillary Clinton said that one Republican lawmaker asked her a line of questions about “vile, bogus conspiracy theories.”

Democrats said Thursday that the Boebert photo incident underscored how important it was for there to be a clear public record of the deposition. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, said Hillary Clinton, after the incident, repeated her longstanding demand that the deposition be made public, and Democrats called for a video and transcript of the complete proceedings to be released quickly.

Comer said that he would work quickly to release a video and transcript of the deposition.

“The purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein,” he told reporters outside the convention center where the depositions were being held. “How did he accumulate so much wealth? How was he able to surround himself with some of the most powerful men in the world?”

Comer described the deposition as a bipartisan effort and said Thursday that it was “very possible” the committee would question Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was Epstein’s neighbor and had several interactions with him. Under questioning from Democrats this month, Lutnick  after the late financier’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child, reversing his previous claim that he had cut ties with him after 2005.

Democrats call for Trump to testify

Democrats, now being led by a new generation of politicians, have prioritized transparency around Epstein over defending the former leaders of their party. Several Democratic lawmakers joined with Republicans on the Oversight panel to  against the Clintons last month. Several said they had no relationship with the Clintons and owed no loyalty to them.

Garcia also called on Trump to testify in the investigation. He argued that Bill Clinton’s appearance sets a precedent that should apply to Trump as well.

“Let����ap get President Trump in front of our committee to answer the questions that are being asked across this country from survivors,” Garcia said.

Comer previously said the committee can’t depose Trump because he is a sitting president.

Still, Democrats are also coming off an effort this week to confront Trump about his administration’s handling of the Epstein files by taking women who survived Epstein’s abuse as their guests to Trump’s State of the Union address.

Garcia and others also are challenging the Department of Justice’s assertion that it has met the requirements of a law passed by Congress last year that mandates the release of many of the case files on Epstein.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said his caucus in the coming days also would review unredacted versions of the Epstein case files at a Department of Justice office. Schumer, who demanded that the department release all of the files and preserve all materials, said they will “pull on every thread” until they “reveal this massive cover-up.”

Public affairs editor Jon Murray contributed to this story.

Follow the AP’s coverage of Jeffrey Epstein at .

Senators and members of Congress often bring guests to the president’s annual address. This year, the roster from Colorado includes guests who are on the front lines of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

Among them is Caroline Dias Goncalves, a University of Utah student who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Mesa County last spring after a sheriff’s deputy who pulled her over in a traffic stop alerted federal authorities. Goncalves, who was released from detention in late June, will be a guest of U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat.

“Immigrants like me — we’re not asking for anything special. Just a fair chance to feel safe and to keep building the lives we’ve worked so hard for in the country we call home,” . “I hope no one else has to go through what I did, and I hope my story and presence can help inspire change for a better future.”

In a similar vein, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, also a Democrat, will bring Andrea Loya, the executive director of Casa De Paz. The nonprofit group works with people who are or were recently detained in Aurora’s ICE facility, as well as their families.

Caroline Dias Goncalves is our guest for tonight����ap State of the Union. Dreamers like Caroline have grown up here since they were young kids. They should not have to live in fear of violence from ICE.

— Senator John Hickenlooper (@SenatorHick)

Here are other Coloradans set to attend Tuesday’s speech in the nation’s Capitol. Trump’s address is set to begin shortly after 7 p.m. MST.

U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat from Lakewood, will bring Tyler Guyton, a survivor of the Evergreen High School shooting and the school’s student council president. Pettersen’s district includes the school.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Windsor, will bring state Sen. Byron Pelton, her office said. Pelton, who serves as the minority caucus chair in the state Senate, represents Sterling and northeastern Colorado, a district that overlaps with Boebert’s congressional district.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat from Aurora, will host Jay Park, who owns bb.q Chicken, a restaurant franchise that has a location in Aurora.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, will bring … no one, including herself. Spokesman Jack Stelzner said the congresswoman wasn’t planning to attend the speech and “won’t force a constituent to sit through (President Donald Trump’s) lies and misstatements.”

U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a Fort Lupton Republican, will bring his wife, Anne, as his guest.

Messages sent to Republican U.S. Reps. Jeff Crank and Jeff Hurd and to Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse were not immediately returned Tuesday.

Trump wrote in a social media post Saturday that the freshman Republican’s recent vote to cancel the president’s tariffs on Canada left Hurd as “one of a small number of legislators who have let me and our country down.”

The president instead threw his weight behind the more politically conservative Hope Scheppelman in her June primary against Hurd. She is a former vice chair of the Colorado Republican Party and a hospital corpsman with the U.S. Navy.

Scheppelman, who lives in Bayfield, has worked in the healthcare field for 35 years and is a critical care nurse practitioner.

Trump, in his , said Scheppelman had his “complete and total endorsement to be the next representative from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.” He called Hurd a RINO — a Republican in name only — and said it was only the second time he had rescinded an endorsement.

Hurd was one of just six Republicans to join nearly all House Democrats earlier this month in — a rare instance of Congress trying to assert its authority over the Trump administration. The Feb. 11 vote came less than two weeks before the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday striking down many of the global tariffs Trump had imposed using emergency powers.

Without mentioning the president by name, Hurd late Saturday that “every vote I cast is guided by what is best for this district and the long-term strength of our country.”

“Leadership requires independent judgment and the willingness to stand on principle,” Hurd wrote. “My focus remains on delivering results for rural Colorado. That����ap the job I was elected to do — and I’ll keep doing it with conviction, optimism, and a deep gratitude for the people I serve.”

Hurd, who represents many farmers and ranchers on Colorado’s West Slope and beyond, has long questioned whether Trump was improperly stepping on congressional authority by imposing import taxes that he argued are the proper province of Congress — an argument the Supreme Court justices advanced in their 6-3 decision Friday.

Scheppelman on X , saying she was “honored to have the president����ap trust and support to be his partner in protecting jobs and creating economic opportunity for the American people.”

“I will not let the people of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District down,” she wrote.

Neither Hurd nor Scheppelman could be reached for comment Monday. The Republican primary for the right-leaning district, Colorado’s largest by geography, is June 30.

Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney, has staked out in the fundraising game, collecting in this election cycle more than $2.3 million as of the end of last year. Scheppelman had raised just over $200,000 at the same point.

If Hurd prevails in the June primary, he will likely face Democrat Alex Kelloff in November. Kelloff, who helped found Armada Skis as part of a career in the financial industry, is unopposed on the Democratic side. He had raised $854,000 as of the end of 2025.

Hurd comfortably won the 2024 Colorado Republican primary against five opponents, a contest prompted by Rep. Lauren Boebert’s decision to abandon the district she had represented in Congress for more than three years to run in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District.

Hurd went on to defeat a heavily financed Democratic opponent in the general election that year.