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.

Twenty years later, Denver’s city leaders want to recreate : the thousands of eager visitors, the national focus on the Mile High City, the event that sparked a decade of Democratic political successes.

Mayor Mike Johnston’s office is preparing a bid to host the 2028 Democratic National Convention, according to a letter from Colorado’s Democratic members of Congress provided to The Denver Post by one of the signatories’ offices.

Presidential nominating conventions, which happen every four years, are where Democratic and Republican party delegates formally select their presidential candidates.

If Denver is successful, it could mean a major economic boost for a city still struggling to rebuild its downtown after the COVID-19 pandemic and years of construction on 16th Street. When Chicago held the event in 2024, it brought in an according to the Chicago Tribune.

The 2008 convention created a regional benefit of about $400 million in today’s dollars for the Denver area, then-Mayor John Hickenlooper

The event would also have costs, however. Thousands of new people all pouring into Denver at once would strain the city’s resources, including its infrastructure and law enforcement. The 2008 convention brought protests and a heavy police presence.

that the Windy City spent at least $75 million in federal dollars to strengthen its fire and police forces, and on construction.

Denver’s own budget has been strained this past year as stagnating sales tax revenue triggered layoffs and spending cuts.

So far, Johnston’s office isn’t providing details on the city’s bid, with spokesman Jon Ewing saying only: “We are honored to be in consideration to host the Democratic National Convention.”

But a from the state’s Democratic members of Congress to party chair Ken Martin confirms that the city plans to submit a bid.

“We would be honored to welcome the Democratic National Convention back to Colorado in 2028 and to share the incredible amenities, hospitality and spirit of our thriving state,” according to the letter dated Dec. 17. “We encourage you to give the bid submitted by the City and County of Denver your full and fair consideration consistent with all applicable laws and regulations.”

Denver’s DNC pitch

It����ap unclear exactly what Denver’s leaders will include in their proposal, but the delegates’ letter and input from political experts provide some clues into what officials may highlight.

The package is likely to present some practical necessities — like possible hotel, security and venue options — and an appeal to a grander political narrative about how Denver represents the future of the Democratic Party.

Colorado has become a Democratic stronghold in recent election cycles, a major change from its swing-state status in 2008. As national Democrats search for a new path to political success, returning to the place that launched the Obama coalition may offer a strong symbol. Colorado’s Democratic representatives in Congress nodded to that in their letter, calling Obama’s nomination “one of the most iconic moments in convention history.”

Part of what made Obama’s acceptance speech so notable was that it took place at Empower Field at Mile High, then called Invesco Field. Typically, nominating conventions are held in smaller, enclosed arenas. The last-minute change to the massive stadium created a unique, rockstar-like atmosphere that Democrats haven’t replicated since. While Obama’s campaign attempted to hold another open-air acceptance in 2012, .

The Congressional delegation also pointed to the convenience of most parts of the country having direct flights into Denver International Airport and the city’s A-Line commuter rail from the airport to Union Station.

“Beyond the city, Colorado’s natural beauty offers extraordinary opportunities for attendees who may wish to extend their stay,” they wrote.

Shad Murib, the chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, also declined to share details on the city’s application but confirmed that the party is working with Johnston’s office on it. In a statement, he nodded to recent election results that show Colorado voters are only getting more Democratic despite the opposite happening in many parts of the country.

“In 2024 and 2025, Colorado showed the nation how Democrats can win in rural and red areas alike with community-oriented candidates, year-round organizing and an across-the-board focus on saving people money and strengthening freedoms,” he said in a written statement. “That����ap what it����ap going to take to win back Congress and the White House.”

What national Democrats may consider

In the past, the Democratic National Committee has oscillated between hosting the event in swing states and safe Democratic areas. The last convention, in 2024, was held in Chicago, a deep blue city in a deep blue state. The 2020 convention was meant to be in Milwaukee — in the swing state of Wisconsin — before officials opted for a mostly virtual convention due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This would be less about trying to win over the state for the Democrats but could still be bringing attention to political organization in the Mountain West,” said Seth Masket, a professor of political science at the University of Denver.

Some of the other cities known to be submitting bids for the convention are �����Ի� . Those could become new rivals for Denver as the process heats up. In past election cycles, city leaders who were finalists for the event lobbed insults at one another, disparaging one another from across the country for a chance at the prestigious selection.

Masket said in the end, the party’s choices are often “surprisingly opaque.”

“I would think the city (Denver) would be very competitive with this,” Masket said. “It����ap also pretty vague how the party makes this decision in the end and what features they actually end up being most persuaded by.”

The Democratic National Committee didn’t respond to a request for comment by this story’s deadline.

Masket remembers the 2008 convention being a “very vibrant time to be in the city.” That would be good news for Johnston, who has made vibrancy his biggest tagline for Denver’s goals and who plans to run for a second term in 2027.

“Every sort of storefront and restaurant is kind of at its best and just showing people and trying to attract people. It����ap crowded but it����ap an exciting time,” Masket said.

The event would put Denver in the national spotlight, giving people from across the country a look at the city’s mountainous skyline and revamped downtown.

“It����ap very good advertising,” Masket said. “It����ap an expensive thing, but it is good promotion for the city.”

The timeline for when the national committee will choose the location hasn’t been announced, but the 2024 location was selected about a year and a half before the convention.

In an unusually early announcement, the Republican National Committee in 2023 announced that it had

Another factor that could come into play is that Denver has already hosted the event for Democrats twice before, and again in 2008. Several other cities have held the convention multiple times. It has been in Chicago 12 times, Baltimore nine times and New York five times.

While some of those cities re-hosted more than two decades apart, the event was in New York City in 1976, 1980 and 1992. That means it wouldn’t be unprecedented for Democrats to choose Denver again 20 years later.

“It����ap not far-fetched at all,” Masket said.

District officials placed Chris Sutton on what’s called “inactive” status on Sept. 16 after receiving complaints about a social media post he made — a move that barred him from teaching for at least the remainder of the 2025-26 academic year, according to a news release from Sutton’s Denver-based attorney, David Lane.

The district reinstated Sutton on Dec. 5 after his attorneys sent a letter to administrators threatening a lawsuit and alleging administrators violated the educator’s First Amendment right to free speech.

“This is a really important case,” said attorney Maddie Schaefer of Killmer Lane LLP, who represents Sutton, in an interview. “People need to know their First Amendment rights cannot be violated in this way.”

Pueblo County School District 70 declined to discuss the case, issuing a statement Thursday that said, “In accordance with district policy, District 70 confirms that Christopher Sutton, an at-will employee, was temporarily placed on inactive status and has since been reinstated.”

Sutton’s suspension came as educators at universities and K-12 schools nationwide faced in the wake of his death.

On Sept. 14, Sutton wrote a Facebook post referencing the death of Kirk, who had been shot days earlier while speaking on a college campus in Utah.

“Pretending that everyone deserves to be mourned is dumb as (expletive),” Sutton wrote. “Sometimes, the world becomes a better place. If I find relief in the passing of my own relative, then why in the (expletive) would I need to grieve a propagandist that worked to make the world more dangerous?”

Republican National Committee member Christy Fidura shared a screenshot of Sutton’s post in a Facebook group called “Pueblo County Patriots” and encouraged members to contact the district’s superintendent, according to a letter sent by Sutton’s attorneys to district officials.

Fidura declined to comment for this story.

Eight people complained to district officials regarding Sutton’s Facebook post before he was placed on “inactive” status pending an investigation by the Board of Education, according to the letter.

Two of the people who complained were local politicians who threatened not to support a mill levy override to increase funding for the Pueblo school district, according to Sutton’s attorneys.

Sutton, a disabled veteran, had several teaching jobs in October that he was unable to work because district officials suspended him, according to the letter.

In a Dec. 5 letter that District 70 Superintendent Ronda Rein sent Sutton regarding his reinstatement, she wrote, “The District wishes to reiterate that the initial action of placing your substitute eligibility status on inactive status was neither arbitrary nor capricious.”

“That decision was made based on a valid and documented concern that your past behaviors and activities, particularly those conducted on social media, created substantial and credible disruption to the educational environment and required the expenditure of significant administrative resources,” Rein wrote.

Sutton might still pursue a lawsuit against the Pueblo County School District despite his reinstatement, Schaefer said.

“There’s further accountability that needs to be had for these actions against Mr. Sutton,” she said. “…The harm that was done to his constitutional rights — his ability to speak freely — that harm sends a message to other people in the district, other employees, that if they choose to speak freely about issues of national public concern that the district disagrees with, they might also suffer these types of consequences.”

In a May 12 letter, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division requested a broad swath of voter and election data from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office — a request that potentially covered everything from surveillance footage and custody logs to completed paper ballots from previous elections. The civil rights division’s head, Harmeet Dhillon, wrote that the agency had received a complaint that Colorado wasn’t complying with a federal election statute that includes record retention.

The request — and the records it sought — is unprecedented, said Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association. The federal request was .

“It����ap really, really expansive,” Crane said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, nor has anybody else that I know in this field.”

Secretary of State Jena Griswold said her office turned over some records to the agency, including two recent voter lists and a third document that included which Coloradans voted. Those are all public records that could be provided to anyone who asked, Griswold said Tuesday.

Griswold said her office either didn’t have access to other records that were requested, which are kept by individual counties, or her office didn’t believe the Justice Department had a legal basis for seeking them.

Crane and Griswold both said they thought the request was intended to help Peters, who was convicted last year of using someone else’s security badge in spring 2021 to give access to Mesa County’s elections system to a third party with ties to another prominent election denier, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

Griswold said the federal laws cited in the Justice Department’s letter were the same used by Peters’ defense to claim that she was only seeking to preserve election records, and Crane said he worried that the request would expand what would be considered an election record to back up Peters. The letter also came a week after President Donald Trump referred to Peters on social media as a “political prisoner” and called for her release.

Shortly after Trump returned to office in January, the Justice Department had also previously filed a “statement of interest” in Peters’ case, a sign of the agency’s interest in her conviction.

The Justice Department did not return an email Monday seeking comment.

On March 25, Griswold’s office received a separate letter from the law firm that Dhillon, the Justice Department official, had founded. The letter, sent on behalf of the Republican National Committee, also sought a broad selection of election records.

The expansive request from the Justice Department had several problems, Griswold said. For one, it erroneously referred to Colorado as a “commonwealth,” and it requested data dating back to November 2000. That was a typo, Griswold and Crane said, and was supposed to refer to the 2020 election that Trump has falsely claimed he won. The two officials took that as another tip-off that the request was intended to affect Peters.

Griswold said her office hasn’t heard from the Justice Department since it sent some records last month. Crane said that, to his knowledge, no county has received a similar letter from the agency seeking the records that Griswold’s office says it doesn’t have. Griswold has also not received any information about the complaint that formed the basis of the letter.

“We don’t even know what it means,” she said. “As far as we know, it����ap Donald Trump’s complaining on social media.”

So says Eli Bremer, whom the party’s central committee selected to replace Williams as party chair in a vote on Saturday.

“My job is to get this thing back on track as fast as possible and make sure it’s rebuilt correctly to support Republican candidates,” said Bremer, a former chair of the El Paso County Republican Party and a 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate, on Monday.

But Williams, in a text message to The Denver Post, called the contention that he was no longer the head of the GOP in Colorado “beyond absurd.” He said a “fringe party faction” that met in Brighton over the weekend does not “get to decide for 400 plus members (of the central committee) at a fake meeting.”

In an email sent after Saturday’s vote, the party claimed that Republican National Committee parliamentarian Al Gage had already determined in an opinion that the meeting in Brighton was “illegitimate” and any action taken “was or will be null and void.”

More than 180 committee members attended or participated by proxy. All but a handful took part in the vote, with more than 90% of votes cast in support of Williams’ removal, according to former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams — no relation — who served as parliamentarian for the meeting.

As with the two popes who ruled the Roman Catholic Church in the late 14th and early 15th centuries after the institution underwent a major schism, the state Republican Party is without a definitive leader. Ultimately, it may be up to a judge or the RNC to determine who is the legitimate head of the Colorado GOP.

“Since this has already gone to a court three times, it’s going to go to a court a fourth time,” said Todd Watkins, the vice chair of the El Paso County Republicans who spearheaded Saturday’s meeting at a Brighton church. “It’s obviously going to be a legal battle — we always knew that.”

Still, Saturday’s decision quickly gained some influential recognition. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which supports GOP congressional candidates, announced it would support the result, and luminaries congratulated Bremer.

The latest twists and turns in the long-running skirmish between mainstream critics and Dave Williams, a far-right former state lawmaker who ascended to the top of the party last year, has revealed a Colorado Republican Party riven by dissent and bitter division just 10 weeks before the Nov. 5 election.

Cries for Williams’ ouster from within his own party have grown louder over the last few months. They’re centered on his unorthodox and controversial decision to pick and choose certain GOP candidates as favorites during the primary election season — including himself in his unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District.

In April, Williams was criticized for tossing a political reporter from the party assembly in Pueblo due to his belief that the reporter’s coverage of Republicans had been “very unfair.” Around the same time, a Republican strategist filed an ethics complaint against Williams, alleging he improperly used state party monies to help his congressional effort.

In June, Williams was lambasted by politicians on both sides of the aisle after he sent out an email under the party banner titled “God hates pride,” repeating anti-LGBTQ+ smears and calling for the burning of Pride flags.

Late last month, the planned attempt to oust Williams was put on hold by a district court judge before regaining momentum in early August when the judge decided his court lacked jurisdiction to block it.

That resulted in Saturday’s gathering of the party’s central committee in Brighton for a special meeting.

The party’s bylaws, which set the threshold to remove the chair at 60% of the committee, leave some room for interpretation. But the Brighton attendees voted to interpret the threshold as the proportion of those in attendance at the meeting.

Watkins said the true desires of the party were already borne out during the June primary, when nearly every one of Williams’ endorsed congressional candidates lost their race.

“That’s the party we’re supposed to be representing,” Watkins said of the winners.

Most of the Republican nominees in the state’s eight congressional races signed a letter Saturday recognizing Bremer as chair of the state party, along with former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn as vice chair and former Mesa County GOP Chair Kevin McCarney as secretary. Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen also signed the letter.

Wayne Williams said the party will move forward under its new leadership, even as the “legal wrangling” over the central committee vote continues.

“We need to get away from the damaging sideshow that has been hurting our party’s effectiveness, which has essentially been absent without leave in this fall’s campaign,” he said.

Bremer, a 14-year Air Force veteran and a pentathlete in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, opened an office in Colorado Springs on Monday to run the party out of until he can gain access to the party’s headquarters in Greenwood Village.

“My job description is to stop the damage to the party,” said the 46-year-old Colorado Springs businessman. “We’re going to take every legal step to protect the assets of the party as quickly as possible. I am here to fix the problem we have right now.”

Harris’ local campaign staff will include several people with ties to current and former Colorado officials as the Democratic nominee attempts to solidify the blue status of the former swing state in recent elections. Leading the staff will be state director Kayla Calkin, who previously has worked as federal campaigns director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Sophia Escobedo, a former outreach director at Personal PAC, an Illinois abortion-rights group, will serve as the general elections director. Kara Powell, who works as the press secretary for U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, will serve as the campaign’s deputy communications director. And Simon Tafoya, who runs a government affairs agency in Denver and previously worked for former U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, will serve as the political and coalitions advisor.

They are joining Serena Woods, who previously served as a senior advisor to Gov. Jared Polis and recently was hired as a senior advisor for Harris’ campaign.

Woods joined the campaign soon after Harris announced she’d seek to replace President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket upon his withdrawal in July. She helped lead a Zoom call of Colorado Democrats at the end of July to rally support for the then-presumptive nominee.

Harris officially won the Democratic nomination last week, ahead the Democratic National Convention that starts this Monday in Chicago, and announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

Dan Kanninen, the Harris-Walz 2024 battleground states director, said in a statement that Colorado voters will have a choice between the Democrats’ “vision of the future that will strengthen our democracy, protect reproductive rights, and ensure that everyone can get by and get ahead, and Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda that would drag our country into the past.”

“This battle-tested team will make that choice clear to communities across the state and help deliver Colorado once again in November,” he said.

Biden July 21 after weeks of building pressure following a disastrous debate with Trump, now the Republican nominee. Biden endorsed Harris as his replacement.

In the 2020 election, Biden beat Trump in Colorado by 13.5 percentage points.

Trump’s campaign did not respond Monday to a request for information about its Colorado staffing plans. Earlier this year, it , but his duties were later shifted to help with the planning of last month’s Republican National Convention.

A Trump spokesperson told in June that the campaign would combine forces with the Republican National Committee to defeat Democrats this November, but “we do not feel obligated … to discuss the specifics of our strategy, timing and tactics with members of the News Media.”

Saturday’s sold-out dinner costs $25,000 to attend, $100,000 to co-host and $500,000 to be featured as a host, . The fundraiser’s location in Aspen isn’t disclosed.

The event’s listed hosts include former ambassador and private financier Duke Buchan, billionaire oil and gas tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand, and Denver-based businessman and homebuilder Larry Mizel.

This week’s event was reported earlier by . Messages sent to event organizers, the Trump campaign, the Pitkin County Republican Party and the Orange County GOP were not immediately returned Monday.

Trump is running against Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden withdrew from his reelection race two weeks ago.

Mizel hosted Trump fundraisers in both Aspen and Denver in 2016, when he co-chaired Trump’s Colorado campaign. Reached by phone Monday, Mizel’s office said that he “does not speak to the press.” Mizel has substantially backed other Republican candidates in Colorado and nationally, and last year he donated to Trump challenger Mike Pence — Trump’s former vice president — before Trump sealed the Republican nomination, federal finance data show.

Several other hosts are also established Republican donors. Hildebrand has already given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates across the country this cycle, according to finance data. He and his wife, who’s also listed as a host of the Aspen event, gave $1.2 million to Trump in 2020,

Buchan, who was nominated by Trump to be ambassador to Spain and Andorra after Trump’s 2016 win, has given $162,500 to a pro-Trump PAC in recent months, election data shows.

He was tapped as the Republican National Committee’s finance chair in 2022, , and he donated more than $940,000 to Trump’s campaign in the 2020 election. His wife is also listed as a host.

Other hosts include Drew McKnight, co-CEO of Fortress Investment Group; businessman Warren Lichtenstein; John Phelan, the co-founder of a Florida-based private investment firm, and his wife; Diane and Tom Smith, of Prescott Investors; and Andrew McKenna, the former chair of the Illinois Republican Party whose father was the chairman of McDonald’s and owned a stake in the Chicago Bears.

PHOENIX — An Arizona grand jury has indicted former President chief of staff , lawyer and 16 others — including two attorneys with Colorado ties — for their roles in an attempt to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

The indictment released Wednesday names 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump won Arizona in 2020. They include the former state party chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers, who are charged with nine counts each of conspiracy, fraud and forgery.

The identities of seven other defendants, including Giuliani and Meadows, were not immediately released because they had not yet been served with the documents. They were readily identifiable based on descriptions of the defendants, however.

Those include John Eastman, a lawyer who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election. He was working as a visiting professor of conservative thought and policy at the University of Colorado Boulder during the 2020 election and its aftermath.

The and reported that Colorado native Jenna Ellis, another Trump attorney, also was indicted. Ellis is facing potential disbarment in Colorado after pleading guilty in Georgia to crimes related to 2020 election lies.

Trump himself was not charged but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator.

With the indictments, Arizona becomes the fourth state where allies of the former president have been charged with using false or unproven claims about voter fraud related to the election. Heading into a likely November rematch with Biden, Trump continues to spread lies about the last election that are echoed by many of his supporters.

“I will not allow American democracy to be undermined,” Democratic state Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a video released by her office. “It����ap too important.”

The indictment alludes to Giuliani as an attorney “who was often identified as the Mayor” and spread false allegations of election fraud. Another defendant is referred to as Trump’s “ ,” which describes Meadows.

Descriptions of other unnamed defendants point to Mike Roman, who was Trump’s director of Election Day operations, and Christina Bobb, a lawyer who worked with Giuliani.

A lawyer for Eastman, Charles Burnham, said his client is innocent. Bobb did not respond to a text message seeking comment, nor did a lawyer who is representing Roman in a case in Georgia.

George Terwilliger, a lawyer representing Meadows, said he had not yet seen the indictment but if Meadows is named, “it is a blatantly political and politicized accusation and will be contested and defeated.” Giuliani’s political adviser, Ted Goodman, decried what he called “the continued weaponization of our justice system.”

The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans.

Their lawsuit asked a judge to de-certify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and block the state from sending them to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked legal standing, waited too long to bring their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.”

Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the 11 participated in the certificate signing.

The Arizona charges come after a string of indictments against fake electors in other states.

In December, a on felony charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument in connection with false election certificates. They have .

Michigan’s Attorney General in July that included forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery against 16 Republican fake electors. One had charges dropped after reaching a cooperation deal, and the 15 remaining defendants have .

Three fake electors also have been charged in Georgia and others in a sweeping indictment accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn the results. They have .

In Wisconsin, 10 Republicans who posed as electors , admitting their actions were part of an effort to overturn Biden’s victory. There is .

Trump was in federal court over efforts to cling to power after his defeat, . The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday will hear arguments on his claim in that case that he can’t be prosecuted for acts he committed while serving as president.

In early January, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said that state’s five Republican electors cannot be prosecuted under the current law. In New Mexico and Pennsylvania, fake electors added a caveat saying the election certificate was submitted in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors. No charges have been filed in Pennsylvania.

In Arizona, Mayes’ predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, conducted an investigation of the 2020 election, but the fake elector allegations were not part of that examination, according to Mayes’ office.

The so-called fake electors facing charges are Kelli Ward, the state GOP’s chair from 2019 until early 2023; state Sen. Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, an executive of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who serves on the Republican National Committee; state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now a candidate in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District; Greg Safsten, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; energy industry executive James Lamon, who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat; Robert Montgomery, chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee in 2020; Samuel Moorhead, a Republican precinct committee member in Gila County; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, past president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward.

In a statement, Hoffman accused Mayes of weaponizing the attorney general’s office in bringing the case but didn’t directly comment on the indictment����ap allegations.

“Let me be unequivocal, I am innocent of any crime, I will vigorously defend myself, and I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this naked political persecution by the judicial process,” Hoffman said.

None of the others responded to either phone, email or social media messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

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Associated Press writers Gabe Stern and Scott Sonner in Las Vegas, Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have officially secured the requisite numbers of delegates to be considered their parties’ presumptive nominees.

It was a foreseeable outcome. Biden faced token opposition in the Democratic primary. Several high-profile Republicans ran against Trump but didn’t come close to knocking him off course in his third straight Republican bid.

Here is a look at what that means, what����ap changed, and what still needs to happen before Biden and Trump can drop “presumptive” and just be their parties’ official standard-bearers:

The Associated Press only uses the “presumptive nominee” designation once a candidate has captured the number of delegates needed to win a majority vote at the national party convention this summer. For Republicans, that number this year is 1.215. On the Democratic side of things, it����ap 1,968.

The marker essentially ends the presidential primary season, though both Biden and Trump have been largely focusing their energies on each other for months already.

Sort of.

Generally, the national Democratic and Republican parties start coordinating directly with their presumptive nominees once their status is clear, although there have been some exceptions.

Last week, the Republican National Committee ushered in new leadership handpicked by Trump, in the form of a new chairman, co-chair and party chief of staff. Trump’s installed leaders then moved to fire dozens of RNC staff.

After Trump won both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — but still faced GOP opponents — an RNC member who is a longtime Trump ally floated a resolution that would have allowed the party to consider him its “presumptive nominee” and allowed some of that coordination earlier.

Trump actually spoke out against the measure — although he said it likely would have succeeded — which was ultimately withdrawn.

As for the Democratic National Committee, Biden is the de facto leader of the party, although any official leadership changes have to go through structured channels. During the 2020 campaign, the DNC shuffled its leadership and entered into a joint fundraising agreement with Biden in April, even though the candidate didn’t clinch the Democratic nomination until June.

A presidential candidate doesn’t officially become the Republican or Democratic nominee until winning the vote on the floor of the nominating convention, which takes place this summer. Delegates’ casting of votes is mostly a ceremonial procedure, but it hasn’t always been this way.

Decades ago, presidential candidates might have run in primaries and caucuses, but the eventual nominees weren’t known until delegates and party bosses hashed things out themselves at the conventions.

___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

ATLANTA — Joe Biden and Donald Trump each won the White House by razor-thin margins in key states.

Now, with a reprise of their bitter 2020 campaign all but officially set after Super Tuesday, the two campaigns are unveiling their strategies for a matchup between a president and his immediate predecessor.

Both campaigns will fight the hardest in seven battleground states, five of which flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden four years ago. Biden’s reelection campaign claims a jump on hiring staff and targeting swing-state voters. Trump campaign officials are finalizing a takeover of the Republican National Committee this week and looking to expand their field operation.

Biden and Trump will each hold events in Georgia on Saturday, a week after they did simultaneous U.S.-Mexico border trips in Texas. That����ap a reflection of how closely their campaigns will bump up against each other but also how they will work for votes differently. Biden will be in metro Atlanta, home to a fast-growing and diverse population. Trump will visit rural northwest Georgia and the district of Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a firebrand conservative discussed as a possible running mate.

In a statement Tuesday night, Biden blistered Trump, saying the former president is “driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution” and “determined to destroy democracy, rip away fundamental freedoms like the ability for women to make their own health care decisions and pass another round of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy.”

Trump has spent months skewering Biden for inflation, an uptick in migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, crime in U.S. cities and the wars in Ukraine and Israel. “This is a magnificent country and it����ap so sad to see where it����ap gone,” he said Tuesday night. “We’re going to straighten it out.”

Biden’s campaign has hired leadership teams of three to five people — each with deep, in-state political experience — in eight states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Of those, only Florida and North Carolina have twice gone for Trump, though North Carolina is seen by both parties as competitive. Both Biden and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won Nevada.

The campaign plans to expand those teams to as many as 15 people each, then bring on hundreds of paid organizers across the battleground map in the coming weeks. Those organizers, in turn, will be tasked with coordinating tens of thousands of volunteers.

Biden’s effort will feature “a large brick-and-mortar operation that we couldn’t do in 2020” because of COVID-19 restrictions, said Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s battleground states director. That means returning to door-knocking and phone-banking with the campaign prioritizing the quality of voter contact rather than just the quantity. It will also train volunteers and give them the flexibility to influence their own social networks — promoting Biden’s campaign in non-traditional online spaces that can best sway their relatives, friends and neighbors.

“I see what we’re doing now as the smarter extension of what we learned in ’12 and also the smarter extension of what we learned in ’20,” Kanninen said, referring to both Biden’s victory and the successful reelection of then-President Barack Obama.

Biden’s campaign has lists of existing volunteers who were involved in the 2020 and 2022 elections, meaning they can reactivate existing networks rather than starting from scratch. In Arizona, it has prioritized Spanish-language outreach early, opening its first Arizona field office in Maryvale, an area of Phoenix that is about 75% Hispanic.

“We are making sure that we’re using the next couple of months to build up really quickly to lay that foundation for the general election,” said Sean McEnerney, Biden’s campaign manager in Arizona.

Kanninen said he doubts Trump has enough time to ratchet up the Republican National Committee’s organizing efforts the same way.

The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee have vastly outraised Republicans so far. The Biden campaign reported $56 million on hand at the end of January, according to federal disclosures, while Trump’s campaign reported a balance of $30.5 million.

“He can’t buy this time back,” Kanninen said. “You just cannot replicate this by writing a big check, even if they had the money.”

For Trump, the next post-Super Tuesday step is to complete a takeover of the RNC at the party’s spring meeting that begins Thursday.

The former president effectively will absorb GOP headquarters into his campaign, installing his preferred leadership with a priority on catching up to the fundraising and organizing operation that Biden’s reelection team shares with the DNC.

“It����ap message and mechanics,” said Trump senior adviser Chris LaCivita. “If we do what we’re supposed to do from the campaign standpoint, we’ll be able to really drive and increase the states where we are competitive.”

LaCivita, who is set to become the RNC’s chief operating officer while retaining his campaign role, listed seven of the same eight states the Biden campaign sees as battlegrounds. He clarified that he expects Trump to win Florida again but promised the campaign would not be caught flat-footed there. He also said Trump could be “competitive” in Virginia, which Democrats have won in every presidential race since 2008.

He plans for the RNC to begin expanding its field operation and adding staff to coordinate voter outreach “immediately” after the leadership transition at this week’s party meeting. LaCivita and Lara Trump, the president����ap daughter-in-law, will represent the former president at the meeting in Houston. Lara Trump will become RNC co-chair alongside incoming chair Michael Whatley, the current head of the North Carolina party.

“As soon as we get in, everything changes, and there will be more of a focus on battleground states, as opposed to community centers in Jacksonville, Florida,” LaCivita said.

That����ap a shot at previous RNC investments in community outreach centers targeting Black and other minority voters that historically back Democrats in large percentages. At its peak in the 2022 cycle, the RNC had 38 such centers. That total has now dwindled to seven, with locations in potential swing-state North Carolina but also New York, California and Texas, a trio that won’t be competitive in the presidential race.

LaCivita’s promised buildout will take a financial turnaround. The DNC began the year with 2.5 times as much in the bank as the RNC after outraising and outspending Republicans in 2023.

But LaCivita said he isn’t worried about the overall dynamics as the general election takes shape. “What advantage they may have in timing, they will soon lose on message,” he said Tuesday night.

The RNC has established a full-time election integrity department with directors in 15 key states to safeguard voting and spearhead post-election litigation. That����ap expected given Trump’s demands that the RNC do more to boost his lies about widespread voter fraud. Lawyers backing Trump launched dozens of failed lawsuits after he lost in 2020.

The committee has also hired political staff in 15 battlegrounds, including those with important House and Senate races, like New York, California and Montana, while beginning an early in-person voting and ballot harvesting initiative called “Bank Your Vote” in all 50 states, six territories and six languages.

LaCivita, meanwhile, noted another wild card: Trump, he said, “is very keen on New York,” the heavily Democratic state where the former president was born, raised and anchored his real estate, marketing and reality television success. New York last went for a Republican presidential candidate in 1984.

Asked what he thinks about the prospects of flipping New York to Trump, LaCivita laughed and said, “I do what the boss says. The boss drives.”

___

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.

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