Colorado Democrats are seeking to flip three GOP-held U.S. House seats blue for the 2028 election cycle with a bid to redistrict the Centennial State.
A Democratic group called Coloradans for a Level Playing Field filed ballot measure proposals that would install new, temporary congressional maps for the 2028 and 2030 election cycles. The group is funded in part by House Majority PAC, which fights for a Democratic House majority, according to the New York Times.
“We are asking voters to approve temporary maps to level the playing field in the face of a nationwide election-rigging effort fueled by Trump and MAGA Republicans,” Coloradans for a Level Playing Field spokesman Curtis Hubbard said.
The group filed four ballot measures with the state, seeking to put one of them before Colorado voters in November. Though they use different means to get there, each of the measures would suspend the current congressional maps and approve a new map for the 2028 and 2030 elections, and then give the power back to the state’s independent redistricting commission after the 2030 census.
In response, the Colorado Republican Committee started a petition to keep the maps as they are.
“In 2018, over 70% of Coloradans voted to create Independent Redistricting Commissions for our State Legislature and Congress. Now, Democrats like [Colorado Attorney General] Phil Weiser are trying to gerrymander away Republican seats in Congress,” the Colorado GOP wrote on the petition.
Colorado’s congressional delegation is currently split evenly, with four Republicans and four Democrats. The Democratic-proposed map would target the state’s 3rd, 5th, and 8th Congressional Districts, each held respectively by Reps. Jeff Hurd (R-CO), Jeff Crank (R-CO), and Gabe Evans (R-CO).
Evans’s seat in the 8th District is highly competitive to begin with. He bested his opponent, Democratic former Rep. Yadira Caraveo, in 2024 by just 0.8%.
In 2024, Hurd won his seat by five percentage points, and Crank won by 13.8%.
Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and former attorney general under former President Barack Obama, supported Coloradans for a Level Playing Field’s move.
“Republicans have demonstrated that their mid-decade gerrymanders will not end after the 2026 midterms, and in the face of that continued threat, Colorado is taking a responsible step by asking the voters to weigh in on the state’s temporary response,” Holder said.
REDISTRICTING COURT BATTLES: WHERE THINGS STAND
Unable to redistrict for the 2026 cycle because of a state law, Colorado is bringing the national redistricting wars started by Texas’s move in 2025 into the next congressional election cycle.
Several states, including Virginia, Maryland, and New York, still have redistricting battles to play out ahead of the 2026 elections.