From the flurry of executive orders that ushered in President Donald Trump’s second term to a blizzard of lawsuits filed by the state’s Democratic officials, the state’s political year was marked by near-constant conflict between the GOP-controlled federal government and the Democrats who run Colorado. The year saw the Trump administration step up immigration enforcement and pull back appropriated funds from state programs. Before the year was out, Trump suggested that Jason Crow, a Democratic member of Colorado’s congressional delegation, could face execution for participating in a video that told military service members to disobey orders they alleged are “unlawful” and “unconstitutional.” The state’s Republican representatives in Washington threw their support behind the GOP’s massive budget legislation, extending tax cuts that were set to expire and expanding breaks for some earners, while drawing howls of protest from Democrats over nearly $1 trillion in long-term cuts to health care spending. Dubbed by Trump the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” the legislation was saddled with pejorative nicknames by Democrats, including by U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who called the measure the “Big Bad Betrayal.” Colorado Republicans, meanwhile, routinely referred to the legislation by the name of the legislation it amended, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Months later, the federal government partially shut down for the longest stretch in American history, as Senate Democrats demanded that Congress restore funding for expanded health insurance subsidies in the face of looming price hikes. Congress passed and Biden approved the larger subsidies during the COVID pandemic — and they also set the expiration date, which the GOP refused to extend. Although Colorado’s two senators held firm, the impasse broke when a handful of lawmakers from other states yielded. Along the way, Trump reversed a Biden administration decision that kept the headquarters of U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs and ordered it moved to Huntsville, Alabama, citing Colorado’s all-mail balloting as a “big factor.” In November, state voters passed a pair of statewide ballot measures to fund free school lunches to all children, regardless of their families’ economic income, by raising taxes on residents earning over $300,000 a year. In the same election, progressive candidates won all five contested seats on Aurora’s city council, while Democratic-backed school board candidates swept to victory in Douglas County, one of the most solidly Republican counties in the state. Situated between the 2024 presidential election year and the 2026 midterms, 2025 is what’s known in political parlance as an “off year,” and it more than lived up to its name: reliably off-kilter, sometimes off the wall and definitely off the charts. Sometimes a blur and sometimes a slog, hardly a day went by without the kind of events that would have dominated the news for weeks in other years. Here are some of the moments that defined the state’s off-the-rails political year: Rep. Gabe Evans gives his introduction during Colorado’s 8th Congressional District GOP candidate debate on Jan. 25, 2024, at the Fort Lupton Recreation Center in Fort Lupton, Colo.(Timothy Hurst/The Gazette) NEWCOMERS TAKE OFFICE January came in like a lion and went out like a much larger, more ferocious lion, setting a pattern that would hold throughout the year. The new year dawned with three newly elected Republican members of Colorado’s congressional delegation taking office amid apprehension among state Democrats and the GOP’s excitement over Trump’s return to the White House. Freshmen U.S. Reps. Jeff Hurd, Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans joined their fellow lawmakers, following an unprecedented shake-up on the ground in Colorado in 2024, when U.S. Rep. Ken Buck resigned from Congress, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn declined to seek another term and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert jumped districts after a close call in the previous election. Growing the GOP’s ranks by one, Evans arrived after having unseated Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo by fewer than 2,500 votes in the state’s newest congressional district, marking the biggest Republican win in Colorado in a decade. Along with the three newcomers, Boebert returned for her third term from her new district, joining reelected Democratic U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, Crow and Brittany Pettersen. In the upper chamber, Democratic U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and Hickenlooper prepared for another session. Flanked by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, left, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, second right, and White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks, President Donald Trump displays his signed AI initiative in the Oval Office of the White House on Dec. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, STATE CLASH From his first day in office, Trump made clear his second term would feature a dramatic reset of the relationship between the federal government and states like Colorado, as he sought to reshape America based on campaign promises. That notably included canceling federal funds for programs the administration determined didn’t align with Trump’s philosophy, such as diversity, inclusion and equity spending, coupled with his push to shrink the size of what he deemed to be a bloated federal government. While Attorney General Phil Weiser successfully sued the federal government to reinstate nearly $900 billion in funding, more than $200 million didn’t show up, with another $430 million still at risk in mid-December, according to a federal funding tracker maintained by the state. By the year’s end, Weiser had led or joined nearly 50 lawsuits aimed at reversing actions by the Trump administration, from challenging the Office of Management and Budget’s freeze on all federal funding to state programs and seeking to nullify Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, to attempting to block new tariffs imposed by the president without congressional approval. The battle over federal funds continued throughout the year, with some of the costliest landing in December, as Trump withheld more than $100 million in transportation and energy grant funds from Colorado, denied disaster declaration requests in response to wildfires and flooding in Western Colorado earlier in the year and announced plans to dismantle Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, a world-leading center for weather and climate research that the White House called “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.″ In response to the latter, Bennet and Hickenlooper placed a hold on Senate consideration of an appropriations package on the last day before lawmakers’ end-of-year recess — blocking passage of a bill to fund as much as 90% of the government through the following September — until senators guarantee they’ll add language to the legislation to protect the research agency’s status and funding. A few months into the new administration, Neguse, the assistant House minority leader and the highest-ranking Colorado congressional lawmaker in nearly 100 years, told Colorado Politics he is concerned about the fate of the country under Trump. “I think that this moment is a perilous one for our republic, as we see an administration that’s undermining the rule of law and executive orders that are having dramatic and harmful impacts for countless Americans across our country,” Neguse said. “It’s clear that Congress has to take a comprehensive approach in responding and pushing back against these abuses of power.” Boebert took the opposite view, telling the audience on a tele-town hall: “For far too long, we have had a government that seems to only want to control the people, but you are the ones who are ultimately in control under our constitutional republic in the United States of America, and it has been a wonderful year so far.” Colorado gubernatorial candidates U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, left, and Attorney General Phil Weiser, both Democrats, speak with attendees at the Jefferson County Democratic Party’s annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner on Sept. 28, 2025, in Lakewood. (Ernest Luning/Colorado Politics) MIDTERM RACES TAKE SHAPE Just two days into the new year, the political focus shifted briefly to 2026, when every one of Colorado’s statewide, executive-level elected officials will face term limits, leaving the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and state treasurer all open for the first time in state history. Into that far-off void plunged Weiser, who declared his candidacy for the office held by fellow term-limited Democrat Gov. Jared Polis, in the first of what was expected to be numerous gubernatorial announcements from among the state’s leading Democratic politicians. Weiser burst out of the gate with more than $150,000 raised in the first 24 hours — and over $1 million brought in during the first quarter — but was soon facing an unexpected rival for the nomination when Bennet let it be known he was considering a run for governor. In early April, the U.S. senator made it official. Bennet’s entrance into the race upset the field, leaving several potential Democratic candidates reassessing their plans, including Neguse, Crow, Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who had only recently returned from Mexico, where he served as U.S. ambassador in the Biden administration. Neguse and Crow, who were both first elected in the 2018 Trump midterm elections, set their sights on reelection to fifth terms in Congress. Griswold jumped to the crowded attorney general’s race, where she held a wide lead in fundraising and available polling through the year, and Salazar declined to join the fray. Although Weiser held a fundraising lead over Bennet through the year’s third quarter, the Bennet campaign released polling that showed the three-term senator with a wide lead among likely primary voters. Weiser didn’t back down, and kept up a steady stream of attacks on his opponent for voting to confirm multiple Trump cabinet nominees, while Weiser’s lawsuits notched wins against the federal administration. More than two dozen Republicans launched campaigns for governor in 2025, with no clear frontrunner emerging. Among the candidates heading into the election year are state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, the 2022 congressional nominee who lost her bid to Caraveo in 2022; former U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez, who served six months in Congress after a special election in June 2024 to finish Buck’s term; state Sen. Mark Baisley, a former state GOP official; state Rep. Scott Bottoms, a pastor at a large Colorado Springs church; and ministry leader Victor Marx, who landed an endorsement from Boebert when he launched his campaign in October. The odds of any of the Republicans winning the gubernatorial race in the 2026 midterms are long, since Colorado hasn’t elected a GOP governor in more than 20 years, and a Republican candidate last won a statewide race a decade ago. Energy Secretary Chris Wright holds a press conference on the sidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference in Vienna, Austria, on Sept. 15. (REUTERS) COLORADAN JOINS TRUMP CABINET In early February, both of the state’s Democratic senators voted to confirm Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Energy, Chris Wright, the former CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, one of the country largest hydraulic fracturing companies and the only Coloradan to join the new administration at the cabinet level. One of the fossil fuel industry’s most outspoken critics of efforts to combat climate change, Wright promised to “work tirelessly” to implement Trump’s energy agenda and vowed to reverse the Democrats’ “green new scam” programs. “Our nation deserves a champion for American energy and innovation, and we’ve got the Wright guy for the job,” quipped Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican, after Wright’s confirmation. While Bennett and Hickenlooper took heat from their party’s left flank for voting to confirm eight and 10 of Trump’s 22 cabinet nominees, respectively, both also made headlines when they clashed with administration officials in Senate hearings in the months ahead. In tense exchanges with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Bennet and Hickenlooper pressed the cabinet official on his past statements expressing skepticism about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and slammed Kennedy for firing all 17 members of the Center for Disease Control’s vaccine advisory panel. Colorado State Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, speaks during a news conference on Oct. 15, 2020, in Denver. (Associated Press File) INCUMBENTS DRAW PRIMARY CHALLENGES In December, Hickenlooper, who is seeking a second term in 2026, drew a long-anticipated primary challenge from state Sen. Julie Gonzales, a term-limited Denver Democrat, who cited the incumbent’s votes for Trump cabinet nominees as one reason she decided to run. Noting that she is so far the only candidate challenging an incumbent Democratic senator on ideological grounds — as opposed to challengers who are stressing the need for a new generation at the Capitol — Gonzales said Hickenlooper’s votes for Trump nominees demonstrated an approach she predicts voters are ready to discard. “Sen. Hickenlooper is a nice man, but his ‘go-along-to-get-along’ politics haven’t delivered affordability, accountability, or protection for Coloradans who are threatened by the Trump nominees that he voted to confirm,” Gonzales said. “Colorado doesn’t need another club member,” she added. “We need a Senadora who will stand up to Trump, to corporate lobbyists, and yes, even to our own party when they’re wrong. Coloradans should control our own futures — not politicians who are too comfortable with the way things are.” Other congressional incumbents in both parties are facing primary challengers who made similar arguments, accusing their representatives of not fighting hard enough on critical issues. By mid-December, DeGette, who is seeking a 15th term, had drawn two prominent primary challengers, including University of Colorado Board of Regents member Wanda James and Melat Kiros, the daughter of Ethiopian immigrants and a former corporate attorney. Across the aisle, Hurd faced a challenge from Hope Scheppelman, a former state GOP vice chair, while Republican Adam DeRito had launched a campaign to unseat Evans. ...read more read less