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 shock drubbing, delivered ahead of a formal assembly vote next week, was among signs that Democrats participating in the party’s caucuses and assemblies are dissatisfied with incumbent officials. Some other incumbents, including U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper in his reelection race and Sen. Michael Bennet in the governor’s race, have been leaning on the petition route to the ballot rather than facing primary opponents at the March 28 state assembly.

At the Denver Democrats’ county assembly on Saturday, Kiros — a 28-year-old doctoral student and former lawyer — won 646 votes, or 63%, compared to DeGette’s 336 votes, or 32%. The result was the first time DeGette, 68, has lost a county assembly vote since she entered Congress in 1997, Kiros’ campaign said.

If that level of support holds at the party’s 1st Congressional District assembly on March 27, Kiros will cruise to a place on the June 30 primary ballot. DeGette, meanwhile, cannot afford to lose any more ground: If fewer than 30% of delegates support her at that virtual assembly, she won’t make the ballot at all. Time is rapidly running out to switch tactics and get on the ballot by submitting voter signatures, with petitions due to the state on Wednesday.

“I think it����ap a testament to the organizing we were doing and the lack of organizing (DeGette) was doing on her part — and her thinking she would coast through,” Kiros said in an interview. ” … It was just an incredible, incredible day, and I’m really proud of what our campaign was able to accomplish.”

DeGette campaign spokeswoman Jennie Peek-Dunstone said the congresswoman “received more than the required threshold and we are confident she will be on the primary ballot.”

The polling win does not, by itself, mean that Kiros is a front-runner to prevail in the June 30 primary election, and her campaign will still need to flip DeGette delegates if it wants to keep the congresswoman off the ballot. That’s far from a sure thing, especially for a candidate with the experience and name recognition of DeGette.

But it does speak to the Kiros’ campaign’s organizing capabilities, and the results also represent something of a wakeup call, said Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver.

“DeGette and others know their party and the people associated with it are not terribly popular right now,” he said. “Democrats in general elections have the wind at their back right now, but incumbents in primaries — not so much. It����ap a harder environment.”

DeGette faces progressive challenge

A first-time candidate and daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, Kiros previously worked as a lawyer in New York. She was fired after writing in late 2023 criticizing law firms — including her own — that had signed onto a letter opposing anti-Israel protests. She then moved back to Colorado and entered a Ph.D program at the University of Colorado Denver.

She’s run a progressive challenge to DeGette, backing “Medicare for All,” universal child care and an embargo on arms sales to Israel, a nation that she has accused of committing a genocide against Palestinians.

Kiros has also been endorsed by the Justice Democrats, a left-wing Democratic group that’s backed candidates like now-U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna and Ilhan Omar.

In her Denver assembly speech Saturday, DeGette accused Kiros of lying about her — a comment that drew boos from the audience.

Already a longtime supporter of Medicare for All, DeGette has backed more progressive causes in the past year. She for a halt to providing offensive arms to Israel, and she told assembly-goers Saturday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished and that she wouldn’t support any funding for the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. Those pledges drew cheers.

Kiros’ preference poll win was fueled by pre-assembly organizing, her campaign and supporters said, particularly on the part of the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Deep Singh Badhesha, a DSA member who supported Kiros’ campaign, said organizers had group chats, stickers, food — they’d even set up a system to find babysitters for those who needed it. Such organization also helped the campaign sidestep technology problems that delayed the assembly, he said.

Those tech problems have contributed to lingering concerns among the DeGette campaign about assignment of delegates for the assembly next week, though her campaign said she was not disputing Kiros’ polling victory.

The assembly results come amid a broader surge of challenges to incumbent Democrats nationwide by often-younger and more progressive candidates. More than a dozen Democratic U.S. House members will face primary challenges this spring and summer, .

Some of the contests pit older incumbents against newcomers. Some feature moderates competing against liberals. Some of the matchups have resulted from the nationwide redistricting wars that redrew incumbents’ seats. Most of the races share a common ingredient: challengers seeking to move past the party’s losses in 2024 — and to bring more energy to the fight against President Donald Trump.

“Within the Democratic Party, it����ap this notion of how you best respond to a country that Trump is dominating when you’re all, as Democrats, unhappy with that,” Paul Teske, a professor at CU Denver and former longtime dean of its School of Public Affairs, told The Denver Post on Tuesday. (Kiros was a student of Teske’s last year.)

In addition to Kiros, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James is also running against DeGette in the primary. She did not participate in the assembly process Saturday and planned to file a petition to make the ballot.

‘Scared of the base’

Elsewhere, in the Democratic race for governor, Bennet’s campaign as he filed his primary ballot petition that he wouldn’t also seek a spot on the ballot through the caucus and assembly process. His rival, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, is relying on next week’s state assembly in Pueblo to make the primary ballot.

State Sen. Julie Gonzales has launched a progressive Senate primary campaign against Hickenlooper, who dropped out of the assembly process last week after initially participating. Hickenlooper’s campaign noted that he didn’t complete the assembly process during his first Senate campaign in 2020 and that he’s already submitted petitions for his place on the primary ballot.

In an interview, Gonzales countered that the senator was “scared of the base.”

Some left-wing-versus-moderate fights are set for state legislative races, too. In the Colorado attorney general’s race, two newcomer candidates, David Seligman and Hetal Doshi, are challenging Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty for the Democratic nomination.

In a news release Tuesday morning, Seligman’s campaign said he led Griswold by 2 percentage points in a straw poll of Democratic assembly delegates statewide.

Teske and Masket underscored that success in the Democrats’ assembly process, which often draws more progressive or active party members, does not necessarily translate to a high likelihood of victory in the June primaries.

Kiros’ campaign and organizing helped turn out motivated and informed delegates and supporters Saturday, and they seemed to catch DeGette flat-footed. But the June contest will feature tens of thousands of voters, including many who are unaffiliated, and will require campaign organizing on a vastly different scale.

It will also require money. DeGette had more than $535,000 on hand as of Dec. 31, compared to Kiros’ $64,000. After 30 years in office, which has included DeGette sweeping aside the occasional primary challenge, she can also boast strong name recognition.

“I was surprised,” Teske said of Saturday’s results. “I think Melat’s campaign organized well, got a lot of people out, got young people excited. … Whether it builds any momentum or changes anything is hard to say, because it����ap still hard to beat an incumbent.”

The New York Times contributed to this story.

Re: “Group pursues map that would give Dems 7-1 edge,” Feb. 19 news story

As a reasonable and fair-minded voter, I was incredibly proud of Colorado for establishing a non-partisan commission to determine the Congressional Districts after each census. The result was District 8, which is a near 50/50 split between Republican and Democratic voters ( This is how the Framers envisioned the entire country. When this is successful, we truly have a government that is representative of the people.

However, with the recent efforts by the Republican Party to gerrymander states to gain more red seats, the tide has turned. If allowed to go unchecked, we would truly be living under an autocratic leader, where future elections and choices would likely be decided by the ruling party.

In spite of my feelings about rolling around in the mud with these perpetrators, the Democratic Party has no choice but to undertake this same effort in order to protect democracy and the rule of law. Once the Democrats are able to re-establish a firm footing, new regulations regarding elections and term limits can be enacted to rein in this anarchical behavior.

David Thomas, Denver

When it comes to redistricting, I completely get why Democrats do not want to unilaterally disarm. I would rather voters choose their elected representatives than have elected representatives choose their voters. But that is not where we are at.

The independent commission that set current district boundaries made an egregious error, in my opinion, by splitting Loveland and Fort Collins into different districts. The two cities and surrounding areas are part of a formalized metropolitan area. As well, Larimer and Boulder counties are home to our state’s two largest universities and the populations that serve and support both.

Interstate 25 is a natural cultural and economic divider, so if cleaving off parts of Northern Colorado is necessary, there is your dividing line. If the ballot measures do not unite Boulder, Longmont, Loveland, and Fort Collins, I will vote against them and urge others to do the same.

John W. Thomas, Fort Collins

I find it ironic that the proposed map to favor Democrats in seven of the eight Colorado Congressional districts is being proposed by a group called Coloradans for a Level Playing Field. Curtis Hubbard, spokesman for the group, claims, “No one wanted to have to take this action — independent redistricting is the ideal,” an ideal his group will abandon in order to skew voting for representation in Congress. Our state is currently balanced in representation equally among the eight districts, with Democrats having a slight edge.

To top it off, the issue will be decided by Colorado voters, not the state legislature. The recent redistricting , which would reduce Virginia’s Republican representation in Congress to one representative, will also head to the polls in April. To their credit, Republicans in the state legislature in red-state Indiana recently refused redistricting to favor Republicans, on ethical grounds.

States are now abandoning independent, bipartisan commissions that have traditionally been tasked with redistricting — often at 10-year intervals to coordinate with the Census. This manipulation, a frenzied approach to control Congress, seems unhealthy to our democracy.

Karen Libby, Denver

Wanna bet the commission’s move will benefit the Trumps?

Re: “Trump administration backs prediction markets vs. states,” Feb. 18 news story

President Trump appointed the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who then threw the weight of the federal government behind the prediction market and its primary operators, Kalshi and Polymarket.  Any friendly decision the CFTC makes could financially benefit the president’s family: Donald Jr. has invested in Polymarket and is a “strategic advisor” to Kalshi.

Here’s a bet I want to make — a parlay:  The CFTC will act in such a way that the Trump family will make millions, and Congress will ignore such obvious conflicts — unlike what they did when Hunter Biden was on the board of a foreign company that President Biden had no power to regulate. Put me down for the maximum.

Dan Danbom, Denver

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The new map, proposed by Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, would give Democrats an advantage in seven of Colorado’s eight congressional seats — but not until 2028 at the earliest, unlike in several other states to benefit Republicans or Democrats in this year’s election. Colorado’s eight seats currently are evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with the GOP winning the only true swing district in 2024.

Curtis Hubbard, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement that the proposal seeks to push back against redistricting proposals in Republican states that have been championed by President Donald Trump.

“No one wanted to have to take this action — independent redistricting is the ideal,” Hubbard said. “But with Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans actively working to rig congressional elections, resulting in the potential gain of up to 27 seats in Congress, Colorado must join other states in countering this unprecedented power grab.”

Colorado voters approved a pair of bipartisan amendments to the state constitution in 2018 that tasked independent redistricting commissions with drawing its congressional and state legislative maps. The congressional map that took effect in 2022 has resulted in one extremely competitive seat, the 8th Congressional District; four with a Democratic advantage; and three that lean Republican.

The state is now represented by a 4-4 split of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, even as the state had trended distinctly blue in recent statewide elections.

The new proposals, which were filed for on Wednesday, would pause the independent redistricting map for the 2028 and 2030 elections. The independent commission would draw a new map following the 2030 census to be used for the 2032 election.

The move was criticized by the campaign of U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, the Republican who won the 8th District race in 2024, unseating a Democratic incumbent.

“For years, Colorado Democrats lectured everyone about the sanctity of the independent redistricting commission and claimed it was the gold standard for fairness,” spokeswoman Alexandria Cullen said. “Now that Coloradans have elected four Republicans to Congress, they want to change the rules. This isn’t about fairness — it����ap a partisan power grab to protect their failing extreme agenda from the will of Colorado voters.”

Coloradans for a Level Playing Field filed several proposed ballot measures, a common tactic by advocacy groups to ensure the title board approves one or more.

The proposed map would have seven of Colorado’s eight congressional districts reach into Denver, Boulder or their suburbs and outlying areas — all places with strong Democratic leans. It would leave Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, currently represented by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, covering the state’s Eastern Plains but ceding some of Douglas County.

Hubbard said his group hopes for an initial hearing by the state’s title board in March and for final approval in April. Backers would then have until Aug. 3 to gather to land the measure on the November ballot.

The independent redistricting commission was created via a voter-approved constitutional amendment. Hubbard’s group filed initiatives for both statutory and constitutional changes in case officials allow for the first option, which is easier to petition onto the ballot.

It would need about 125,000 signatures for a statutory change. For a constitutional change it would need that same number of signatures but with a geographic representation requirement, including support from at least 2% of all voters from each of Colorado’s 35 state Senate districts.

A statutory change would need majority support from voters in November to become law, while a constitutional change would require at least 55% support.

Hubbard declined to name the group’s financial supporters ahead of a May filing deadline with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

“We believe we have the support and resources to get this passed in November,” Hubbard said in an interview.

‘We will challenge these,’ conservative group says

Michael Fields, the president of the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado, promised to fight the measures.

The independent redistricting measures from 2018 had each declared that “political gerrymandering … must end,” and each was approved by more than 70% of voters, he said.

“After reviewing these hyper-partisan ballot measure proposals, we believe that they clearly violate the single-subject provision of our state constitution,” Fields said in a statement. “We will challenge these at Title Board — and up to the Colorado Supreme Court, if necessary.”

Nationally, Republicans kicked off the redistricting war last year in response to the potential of losing seats in the 2026 midterm election, and Democrats responded with their own plans.

Redistricting plans in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, with another proposal proposed in Florida. Texas lawmakers have already approved a new map that could net Republicans five additional seats in November. Republican officials in Missouri and North Carolina have also approved new maps to benefit the GOP in upcoming elections.

In Democratic states, voters in California last fall approved a new map that could net Democrats five more seats. Voters in Virginia will decide in April on letting its lawmakers redraw maps to benefit Democrats ahead of the November midterms.

Court rulings or legislative efforts also could affect congressional districts in New York, Maryland and Utah.

In all, those proposals and efforts may largely counteract each other when it comes to the congressional balance of power, according to The New York Times. by the news organization found that, taken together, the new maps could give Democrats a net advantage of two seats or Republicans a three-seat advantage, depending on how specific scenarios play out.

Hubbard also noted from the U.S. Supreme Court that could undo key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in voting. Such a ruling could open up further .

“We can sit back and do nothing, or we can take action to approve temporary maps that will help keep our elections on a level playing field,” Hubbard said of his group’s proposal.

Separately, Trump has also called for Republicans to “” voting as he continues to push disproven theories of widespread voter fraud.

Reaction to Colorado proposal

The new Colorado proposal has drawn reactions that fall along partisan lines, including from the state’s members of Congress and candidates in various races this year.

“We cannot sit idly by as a target of Trump’s retribution and depravity,” U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat who represents the 7th Congressional District, said in a statement that signaled support for the temporary map. “We must use every chance we have to stand up and fight back and ensure Colorado voters have a choice.”

Zach Kraft, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, called the proposal “gerrymandering at its worst and a blatant power grab by a sketchy, dark-money Democrat organization that refuses to disclose who its donors are.”

Besides Evans, the Republican lawmakers who would be most affected by the new map proposal — U.S. Reps. Jeff Hurd and Jeff Crank — did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday. The Colorado Democratic Party did not provide comment.

Sara Loflin from the left-leaning group ProgressNow Colorado praised the effort. Her group supported Amendment Y, which created the state’s independent congressional redistricting process, because “that was at a time when we all believed that the country was coming out of this Donald Trump, authoritarian” moment.

But she said the redistricting fight nationally, urged on by Trump, called for changes.

“We’re happy about it because Donald Trump forced our hand,” she said. She added that she thought the proposal in Colorado was more democratic than Texas’s redistricting plan, since Colorado voters would get a chance to accept it instead of the change coming through a legislative approach.

Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, avoided taking a position on the redistricting effort through a spokeswoman, who said he’d review any ballot measures closer to the election.

WASHINGTON (AP) —  on Wednesday allowed California to use a new  that is favorable to Democrats in this year’s elections, rejecting a last-ditch plea from state Republicans and the Trump administration.

No justices dissented from the brief order denying the appeal without explanation, as is common on the court’s emergency docket.

The justices had previously  to be used in 2026, despite a lower-court ruling that it likely discriminates on the basis of race.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in December that it appeared both states had adopted new maps for political advantage, which the high court has previously ruled cannot be a basis for a federal lawsuit.

Republicans, joined by the Trump administration, claimed the California map improperly relied on race, as well. But a lower court disagreed by a 2-1 vote. The Justice Department and White House did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

The justices’ unsigned order keeps in place districts that are designed to flip up to five seats now held by Republicans, part of a tit-for-tat nationwide redistricting battle spurred by President Donald Trump, with control of Congress on the line in midterm elections.

Last year, at Trump’s behest, Texas Republicans  with an eye on gaining five seats.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is , pledged to respond in kind, though he had to win over voters, not just lawmakers, to do so.

Newsom celebrated the court’s decision, saying on social media that Trump had “started this redistricting war” and would end up losing out in the November midterms, when control of Congress is at stake.

, which brought the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One longtime party strategist, Jon Fleishman, a former executive director of the California Republican Party, said in a post on X that the decision means “this year’s elections will take place on the new lines shrinking the already very small Republican delegation from California.”

Filing for congressional primaries in California begins on Monday.

Associated Press writers Michael Blood in Los Angeles and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided  on Thursday came to the rescue of Texas Republicans, allowing next year’s elections to be held under the state’s congressional redistricting plan favorable to the GOP and pushed by President Donald Trump despite  that the map likely discriminates on the basis of race.

With conservative justices in the majority, the court acted on an emergency request from Texas for quick action because qualifying in the new districts already has begun, with primary elections in March.

The Supreme Court����ap order puts the 2-1 ruling blocking the map on hold at least until after the high court issues a final decision in the case. Justice Samuel Alito had previously temporarily blocked the order while the full court considered the Texas appeal.

The justices cast doubt on the lower-court finding that race played a role in the new map, saying in an unsigned statement that Texas lawmakers had “avowedly partisan goals.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the three liberal justices that her colleagues should not have intervened at this point. Doing so, she wrote, “ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution.”

The high court’s vote “is a green light for there to be even more re-redistricting, and a strong message to lower courts to butt out,” Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Los Angeles law school, wrote on the Election Law Blog.

The justices have blocked past lower-court rulings in congressional redistricting cases, most recently in Alabama and Louisiana, that came several months before elections.

 enacted last summer at Trump’s urging was engineered to give Republicans five additional House seats.

The effort to preserve a slim Republican majority in the House in next year’s elections touched off a nationwide redistricting battle.

Texas was the first state to meet Trump’s demands in what has become  over redistricting. Republicans drew the state’s new map to give the GOP five additional seats, and �����Ի��� followed with new maps adding an additional Republican seat each. To counter those moves,  to give Democrats an additional five seats there.

The redrawn maps are facing court challenges in California and Missouri. A three-judge panel allowed the new North Carolina map to be used in the 2026 elections.

The Trump administration is , but it called for the Supreme Court to keep the redrawn Texas districts in place.

The justices are separately considering a case from Louisiana that could further limit  under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It����ap unclear how the current round of redistricting would be affected by the outcome in the Louisiana case.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the Supreme Court’s order “defended Texas’s fundamental right to draw a map that ensures we are represented by Republicans.” He called the redistricting law “the Big Beautiful Map.”

“Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state,” Paxton said in a statement. “This map reflects the political climate of our state and is a massive win for Texas and every conservative who is tired of watching the left try to upend the political system with bogus lawsuits.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement saying: “We won! Texas is officially — and legally — more red.”

Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin said in a statement that the court’s decision “to allow Texas Republicans’ rigged, racially gerrymandered maps to go into effect is wrong — both morally and legally. Once again, the Supreme Court gave Trump exactly what he wanted: a rigged map to help Republicans avoid accountability in the midterms for turning their backs on the American people.”

In the Texas case, U.S. District Judges Jeffrey V. Brown and David Guaderrama concluded that the redistricting plan likely dilutes the political power of Black and Latino voters in violation of the Constitution. Trump appointed Brown in his first term while President Barack Obama, a Democrat, appointed Guaderrama.

“To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map,” Brown wrote. “But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”

The majority opinion provoked a vituperative dissent from Judge Jerry Smith, an appeals court judge on the panel.

Smith accused Brown of “pernicious judicial misbehavior” for not giving Smith sufficient time before issuing the majority opinion. Smith, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, also disagreed strenuously with the substance of the opinion, saying it would be a candidate for the “Nobel Prize for Fiction,” if there were such an award.

“The main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom,” Smith wrote, referring to the liberal megadonor and California’s Democratic governor. “The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed Thursday’s Supreme Court stay, posting on X, “Federal courts have no right to interfere with a State’s decision to redraw legislative maps for partisan reasons.”

The new map eliminated five of the state’s nine “coalition” districts, where no minority group has a majority but together they outnumber non-Hispanic white voters. The total number of congressional districts in which minorities make up a majority of voting-age citizens dropped from 16 to 14.

Yet Republicans argued the map is better for minority voters. There’s a new, eighth Hispanic-majority district, and two Black-majority districts instead of none.

But critics consider that the Hispanic or Black majority in each district is so slim that white voters, who tend to turn out in larger percentages, will control election results.

Associated Press writer John Hanna contributed to this report from Topeka, Kansas.

Weiser wants Colorado 71% of voters endorsed in 2018 and return to partisan, gerrymandered congressional districts. Because other states have abused redistricting to secure more seats for their majority party, he thinks we should, too.

Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina legislatures recently manipulated their congressional maps to increase the likelihood of gaining additional Republican seats in the next election. In response, California voted to suspend the state’s independent redistricting commission and approve gerrymandered maps in favor of additional Democratic seats. Other states are threatening likewise.

Rather than follow their cynical lead, Colorado should continue to champion its inclusive, bipartisan redistricting process. Gerrymandering is unethical. It denies communities representation, increases partisan acrimony, and contributes to congressional dysfunction.

Since the dawn of nationhood, legislative majorities unconstrained by other checks and balances like redistricting commissions or judicial oversight, have sought to increase their power not by appealing to voters’ hearts and minds but by manipulating the process of redistricting. The term “gerrymandering” goes back to 1812 when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed redistricting legislation to boost his party’s representation in the state senate. The Boston Gazette noted that one redrawn district looked like a salamander naming it a “Gerry-mander.”

Such meandering districts indicate gerrymanderers have been busy. Illinois and Texas’ congressional maps, for example, are crawling with serpentine districts drawn to ensure the majority has the largest number of winnable seats possible and the minority has the least.

Some states have completely erased minority party representation. Congressional districts in New Mexico are gerrymandered so there is not a single Republican representative in Congress, even though 46% of New Mexico voters picked Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Oklahoma’s congressional district map went solid red after the 2021 legislature ensured the state’s one slightly competitive district would never again go blue. Utah Democrats have no congressional representation even though more Salt Lake City voters are Democrats than Republicans. The legislature made sure to dilute their votes by divvying them up among Republican majority districts.

In New York, 44% of voters chose Trump, but Republicans hold only 27% of congressional districts. The opposite is true of Florida where 44% of voters picked Harris but Democrats only hold 29% of the seats. Gerrymandering has reduced Republican representation in Maryland to a single district even though a third of Marylanders picked Trump. Some politicians are now threatening to gerrymander away that state’s last vestige of fairness.

Partisan district rigging doesn’t just deny voters representation; it shields politicians from competition. In heavily gerrymandered Illinois and Texas, only a few districts are competitive. In fact, in most districts, incumbents enjoy not merely an advantage according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index but a double-digit one. By contrast, fewer districts in independent redistricting commission states such as Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Washington give that kind of insurmountable advantage to incumbents.

Without competition, politicians are under little pressure to respond to concerns from constituents who are members of the other party. They need not moderate their messaging or pursue compromise.

If anything, guaranteed reelection is an incentive to behave immoderately. Since the only competition such politicians face is in the primary, they feel pressure to please the most stalwart among the base with partisan votes and red meat messaging.

It stands to reason that if more congressional districts were competitive, politicians would try harder to be more broadly representative in tone and action. Congress would likely not be at an impasse over funding. Democrats would vote to fund the government, and Republicans would be more willing to compromise on health insurance subsidies. As it stands, though, not compromising gains praise from partisan primary voters. The frustration the rest of us feel is irrelevant.

We can do better than Texas and California. By being fair — doing unto others as you would have them do until you — we can encourage the same. Doing to others as they have done only provokes a cycle of bitter retaliation. Colorado should lead, not follow, and preserve its redistricting commission.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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In 2018, voters created the independent Colorado in order to reduce partisan gerrymandering in the creation of congressional districts. The commission is prohibited from drawing district lines that protect any political party. This has worked well, for the most part, until now.

When President Trump directed Republican-controlled states to redistrict ahead of the 2026 mid-term elections in order to give the Republicans in Congress additional seats, he blew the non-partisan systems completely up that had been adopted by several states. We now have Republican states following Trump’s directive and eliminating congressional districts that favor Democrats or independents. California has issued a challenge to other Democratic-controlled states to join them and do the same. Attorney General Phil Weiser has challenged the Democratic leaders of Colorado to do just that. Colorado Democrats did not want this battle, we did not ask for it, but failure to meet this challenge will be nothing less than a failure of current Democratic leadership.

Unfortunately, there is no high road to take here when the president and the Republicans thrive in the ditch. Colorado accomplishes nothing by remaining neutral except complicity. Colorado Democrats are sick and tired of big money and small ideas. We are demanding, not asking for, a repeal of the Congressional Redistricting Commission to appear on the ballot at the earliest possible date, with a subsequent redistricting if it passes, joining California and our other Democratic states in this battle for our democracy. Inaction is simply capitulation — and not a viable option.

William C. (Billy) Compton, Lakewood

Editor’s note: Compton is the former state director of elections and former political director of the Colorado Democratic Party.

Remembering when robots were supposed to improve our lives

Re: “Amazon plans to replace 600,000 jobs with robots,” Nov. 2 business story

I was a student in the 1970s. I distinctly remember discussions about computers. They were going to make our lives easier, and everyone would have more free time. Maybe there would be a three-day work week for everyone — and leisure time to pursue other interests that enrich lives. Instead, the gap between the rich and the poor has gotten greater. Some people have to work two or three jobs to get by. And if you’re lucky enough to have one well-paying job, technology might create a situation where you are expected to be available 24/7.

Somewhere between then and now, capitalism has sent us careening off the rails. Instead of improving the lives of all Americans with technological advances, we have been taught to worship the almighty dollar. The stock market grows as does the wealth of shareholders. And the general public falls farther and farther behind. Surely, with creativity, intelligence, and compassion, we can do better than this.

Nancy Litwack-Strong, Lakewood

Recycling inefficiency

Residents on my block have a front-row seat to city inefficiency. For several weeks, one side of the street has not had recycling pickup. After we were jilted last week on our regular pickup day, we left our carts in the street. Numerous residents have contacted the city to request pickup. Yesterday, a truck came, emptied one cart, and left. A row of seven or eight carts down the block waiting for service was ignored. Residents called, and today the truck returned and emptied one more cart, but no others.

We have been told that each resident has to report their unemptied cart, and the city will send a truck to make a pickup for that address only, continuing to disregard not only the other carts but our requests to empty all the carts.

Why are we paying for a truck and driver to make multiple trips to the same block for the same purpose? This is beyond stupid.

Nancy B. Weil, Denver

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Control of the U.S. House of Representatives hangs in the balance — along with the investigatory, impeachment and legislative authority that a majority in the chamber entails. 

But Colorado won’t be a theater in this latest political battle. Not in time for the 2026 election, at least.

The state’s voters in 2018, and , put a kibosh on redistricting in the state outside the usual post-census cycle that happens every decade.

Amendments Y and Z, passed in 2018, tie the redrawing of district maps for congressional and state legislative seats to the year following the census. Further, the two enshrine in the state constitution that “the practice of political gerrymandering, whereby (legislative and congressional) districts are purposefully drawn to favor one political party or incumbent politician over another, must end.”

The amendments resulted in Colorado drawing up the 8th Congressional District — a new seat granted to the state after the 2020 census — as one of the most competitive seats in the country. Lately, despite Colorado’s otherwise solidly Democratic voting habits in recent years, it’s also given the state an evenly split congressional delegation.

Voters left no ambiguity about their collective feelings when they approved the amendments. Each passed with more than 70% of the vote.

“Clearly, voters told us, told the state, told themselves — they do not want partisan gerrymandering,” said Beth Hendrix, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Colorado, a key backer of the measures. “Why would we overturn the will of the voters?”

The question, however, arises as other states have no such constraints and instead have seen an opportunity to gain an advantage heading into the key midterm election of Trump’s second term.

11 other states eye new maps ahead of 2026

already signed a partisan gerrymandering of its maps into law that’s designed to give Republicans an advantage in five additional congressional districts. Missouri’s Republican majority has also sent a new map to the state’s governor that����ap designed to eliminate a Democratic-leaning seat there.

Kansas, Louisiana, Florida, Indiana and Ohio round out the other Republican-dominated states looking to give the GOP an advantage heading into 2026.

voters, meanwhile, will decide this November on bypassing that state’s independent redistricting commission so it can add five Democratic-leaning seats to its congressional maps — a direct reproach to Texas. Officials in Maryland, Illinois and New York have also threatened to join the gerrymandering wars. 

The resulting maps could end up dictating which party controls the House come 2027.

Now, Republicans over Democrats, with three vacancies. Historically, the president����ap party tends to lose seats in the chamber in midterm elections. Trump’s negative approval rating bodes poorly for him bucking that trend.

He’s publicly in Republicans’ favor, including saying his party is “” to the extra seats in Texas while decrying a lack of GOP representation in deeply Democratic states.

While Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendments barring the practice here, observers recall criticism at the time of the votes that the state was giving up a potent political tool that others may wield.

Now that the theory of political warfare is becoming reality, a new committee has formed, looking to ask Colorado voters if they want to join the fray.

Coloradans start push for change

Jorge Rodriguez, a 27-year-old accountant by trade, formed the last month with the support of like-minded allies. The committee doesn’t necessarily seek the complete repeal of Colorado’s anti-gerrymandering amendments, but it’s looking at ways to give state officials the power to counterbalance gerrymandering elsewhere, Rodriguez said.

“We don’t want every state to just give in to gerrymandering,” said Rodriguez, who voted yes on the 2018 amendments. “At the end of the day, it is good to have independent redistricting. We just want it done nationwide. If we only do it in Democratic states, it’s tying our hands behind our backs while the Republican party arms itself to the teeth.”

Rodriguez is affiliated as a Democrat, but his activism before this has never exceeded attending a few party meetings, he said. He acknowledged it would be a long road to amend the constitution to allow these new powers. He and others on the committee were still working on language for the proposed amendment to bring to the state’s title board for approval.

filed with the state would give the governor or the General Assembly authority to suspend the independent redistricting commission if “substantial evidence” exists that the U.S. president is trying to coerce individual states to adopt maps that favor one political party. An emergency commission would then be appointed to redraw Colorado’s maps “to preserve electoral fairness, proportionality, and resistance to federal executive interference.”

If the state title board approves the proposal, backers would still need to gather nearly 125,000 signatures from across the state and then wage a campaign to win over 55% of voters in 2026 — with every step a costly, time-intensive affair.

Even if such a measure passed, Colorado wouldn’t be able to redistrict until the 2028 election at the earliest.

Rodriguez said he at least wants to push the conversation in Colorado. And, he hopes, push Colorado’s top Democrats to fight more aggressively against national Republicans and the Trump administration in the way Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom, of California, and J.B. Pritzker, of Illinois, have.

Christopher Jackson, an attorney with the law firm Holland & Hart and a former Colorado assistant attorney general, said the state’s constitutional law is clear that mid-census redistricting and partisan gerrymandering are both a no-go in Colorado.

A successful rewriting of the Constitution, in whichever shape, would be necessary to eliminate those restrictions, he said. But from there, he didn’t see significant federal hurdles to Colorado jumping into the redistricting fight.

“Federal law could restrict states like Colorado from doing something,” Jackson said, though he noted that Congress hasn’t actually passed any laws to rein in partisan gerrymandering. “But the U.S. Constitution says states can regulate time, place and manner of their own elections.”

Hendrix, from the League of Women Voters, remains steadfast against Colorado stepping back from its reforms.

Regardless of aims, partisan gerrymanders only hurt representative government, she said. That tactic lets politicians pick their voters instead of the other way around. And, she noted, most Coloradans now identify as unaffiliated with a political party, regardless of voting habits. That tells her the electorate is largely sick of partisan games.

“I understand the reaction of wanting to fight fire with fire,” Hendrix said. “I absolutely do. And it’s a toughie. But we’re sticking to our principles. We don’t believe in partisan gerrymandering. Voters are hurt by partisan gerrymandering. We stand by the voters.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The measure was put on the ballot by leaders of the conservative-led county as a way of gaining more local control — and potentially pushing back on what they characterize as overbearing legislation from Democratic state lawmakers.

The , posted just after 10 p.m., showed the measure getting walloped, with 71% of voters saying no and 29% saying yes. More than 66,000 votes had been counted against Question 1A, while nearly 27,000 were marked in favor — a more than 2-to-1 margin of victory.

“This was a crushing defeat for the commissioners,” said state Rep. Bob Marshall, who took a lead role in pushing for the measure’s downfall.

Marshall, a Democrat who admitted to being in a joyful mood Tuesday evening as he watched the first batch of results come in, said he didn’t envision quite such a lopsided result. In his mind, he thought a blowout would be a 65% vote against.

“It was rushed; it was secretive,” Marshall said of the process that placed the home-rule measure on the ballot. “Douglas County is a well-educated place. They are not fools. Rushing it through in secrecy rubbed everybody the wrong way.”

Douglas County Commissioner George Teal, who was the chief backer of the measure, spoke to reporters after the vote and conceded defeat.

“The results right now, given what has been counted, are pretty definitive,” he said in the commissioners’ hearing room in Castle Rock Tuesday night. “We were moving too fast for the people of Douglas County. And the people of Douglas County are going to need more information.”

In Tuesday’s election, voters were asked to authorize the creation of a county charter — essentially a constitution for Douglas County — along with selecting a 21-member commission to draw up the document. Had it passed, voters would have taken a second vote in November to approve the charter, a necessary step before home-rule authority could have gone into effect.

For now, Denver, Broomfield, Pitkin and Weld counties are the only Colorado counties — out of 64 — with home-rule authority.

The campaign surrounding Douglas County’s quest for home-rule authority has been anything but quiet. Three county residents, including Marshall and former Commissioner Lora Thomas, sued the Board of County Commissioners in April, alleging violations of Colorado’s open-meetings law during the run-up to the special election.

They asked the court to stop Tuesday’s election, which was estimated to cost $500,000, from going forward.

But a judge sided with the county in May, saying he didn’t see evidence that the board violated the open-meetings law and ruling that a preliminary injunction to stop the election would “sacrifice the public’s right to vote.”

The Colorado Court of Appeals last week.

Signs and billboards sprouted along highways and byways in Douglas County, in favor and against, as the special election drew nearer and mail voting began. In late May, about 100 people crowded into county chambers to ask questions about the process, with the meeting devolving into a shouting match between commissioners and several audience members.

Forty-nine candidates vied for the 21 charter commission seats Tuesday, but as voters rejected the measure, the commission will not form.

Opponents, operating under the “Stop the Power Grab” banner, accused the commissioners of quietly concocting the home-rule plan over a series of more than a dozen meetings starting late last year — and then rubber-stamping the decision at a public hearing in late March. That meeting lasted mere minutes.

“What this has brought out in us is the question of — why now?” Kelly Mayr, a nearly three-decade resident of Highlands Ranch and a member of Stop the Power Grab, told The Denver Post this month. “Why are they rushing it? If this is a good idea for the county, why would we not take our time?”

Local control has factored heavily in Colorado politics in recent years, with cities and counties lashing out — even taking legal action — against a state government they accuse of overreach in municipal matters. Just last month, six Denver-area cities — Aurora, Arvada, Glendale, Greenwood Village, Lafayette and Westminster — sued Gov. Jared Polis in an attempt to block two 2024 land-use laws that aim to encourage the building of more housing.

The cities, all of which are home-rule municipalities, argue that the laws, which seek to increase density and eliminate parking requirements near transit stops, violate the provision of the Colorado Constitution that gives local governments the authority to establish their own land-use rules.

Teal sold the effort as a way to give Douglas County the ability to assert its independence from a legislature that has shifted decidedly to the left over the past decade.

Home-rule authority, Teal and other supporters of the measure have said, would give Douglas County greater legal standing to take on state laws that they believe go too far. Douglas County has sued Colorado twice recently over disagreements involving property tax valuations and the level of cooperation local law enforcement can give federal immigration authorities. The county lost both cases.

The legislature designed home-rule authority to have a more pedestrian purpose when it created the designation 55 years ago, allowing counties to decide their governance structure and set salaries for public officials. To what extent counties can use home-rule powers to challenge state law is still a question for the courts.

Teal, on Tuesday, said the idea of home-rule authority in Douglas County is not dead and buried, although he didn’t offer a timeline for when the issue might be pitched again.

“I stand a little humbled that I did not make my case, and yet, at the same time I know there were people out there who heard the message, who did cast a vote. And so I look forward to continuing to work on it,” he said.