February 18, 2026 10:19 AM UTC

Time For Colorado To Take The Redistricting Gloves Off?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As John Frank reports for Axios, a new ballot initiative campaign to redraw Colorado’s eight congressional districts to more fully take advantage of the state’s Democratic political dominance, joining the rush by politically safe states on both sides of the aisle to do so after President Donald Trump declared the process a partisan free-for-all, is kicking off with smart people and real resources behind the effort:

Driving the news: Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, a new political committee, filed four potential ballot initiatives to get one measure before voters this November.

Each would authorize new congressional maps for the 2028 and 2030 elections, either by adding language into state law or the state constitution.

Each would revert redistricting to the state’s independent redistricting commission after the 2030 census.

The intrigue: If voters approve the ballot initiative, it is expected to create three more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in Colorado.

The Colorado Sun’s Jesse Paul:

[T]he plan is the most serious attempt yet to enter Colorado into the national redistricting battle as the major political parties vie for control of the U.S. House. While two other Colorado groups are already working on redistricting plans, Coloradans for a Level Playing Field appears to have big financial backing — and the committee has already drawn a map with new congressional districts for voters to consider.

“No one wanted to have to take this action — independent redistricting is the ideal,” Curtis Hubbard, a spokesman for Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, said in a written statement. “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.”

He added: “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.”

In Colorado, voters approved a bipartisan redistricting reform measure in 2018 that was intended to “take the politics out” of the decadally fraught redistricting process, a well-intentioned moment of magnanimity by our solidifying blue electorate that may have proven Pollyannish in the Donald Trump era of total political warfare. After Trump abandoned any pretense of fairness in redistricting and brusquely ordered red states to redraw their congressional maps mid-decade in order to stave off a midterm election disaster for Republicans, there’s a strong argument that anyone playing by the old rules while Trump remains in power is simply capitulating to his amoral political ruthlessness.

By 2032, it’s nice to think that conditions might improve enough that we can revert to the good intentions that prevailed in 2018. But just as today, that may depend on the integrity of other states that as of now are showing none. Now that the Supreme Court has upheld mid-decade redistricting in the juggernaut states of Texas and California, there may be no ethical standard left to uphold.

Only winners and losers, and the choice of which one we want to be.

Here’s what a 7-1 Colorado looks like. Tell us if you’re ready for it.