I hate to admit it, but Donald Trump has changed me — and in a scary way.
Not when it comes to my thinking on policy issues. As careful readers of this column must know, I’m as progressive as ever and promise to remain so, no matter how long Trump remains in office.
That’s why, just as one example, I have so many problems with Jared Polis, the increasingly less-liberal and more-libertarian Colorado governor, who too often stands in the way of progressive legislation. And who refuses to say, even now, that he regrets his enthusiastic support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as health secretary.
And yet.
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SUBSCRIBEIf there were no Trump, I wouldn’t be in favor of Colorado joining the national gerrymandering wars, even as I personally abhor gerrymandering and have voted against it at every turn.
And because of Trump, whose ideology is, let’s say, a mixed bag — which can be best described as what’s in it for him — I’m less concerned about policy this year than in any election year I can remember.
What I want — and what I think the country desperately needs — is for Democrats to win back the U.S. House and, if possible, the Senate this November, by whatever legal means necessary as a brake against the pro-authoritarian, anti-democratic, warmongering, racist, sexist, jackbooted Trump/MAGA regime.
Winning back the House majority — and/or Senate majority — means being able to stop Trump’s programs in Congress, not that he often bothers consulting Congress in any case. It would also mean winning back the chairmanships of congressional committees. Meaning these committees would inevitably spend the next few years investigating both the corruption and incompetence rife in the Trump administration.
You think that scares Trump? The prospect of losing Congress is why he’s doing all in his power — and some beyond his power — to keep Republicans in charge at Capitol Hill. We can start with the so-called SAVE America Act, which was designed to keep as many people as possible from the polls. It has passed the House, but seems unlikely — we can hope — to pass the Senate, where it needs 60 votes.
The bill would not only make it difficult for people to register to vote without bringing along a sackful of government IDs, but it also requires states to turn over their voting records. Colorado has refused such a request, and Trump is, of course, suing.
We then move on to the Supreme Court, which seems ready to rule against some mail-in ballots — those postmarked by Election Day but which don’t arrive by midnight that night. More court cases on mail-in voting are coming.
And who doesn’t think that Trump will send ICE agents — at least those not still milling around airports — to polling sites to intimidate would-be voters, just as they have intimidated, and actually killed, other U.S. citizens standing up for their rights?
I bring this up because of an interesting article in The Sun Tuesday about the Democratic race in the 8th Congressional District, which is about as ungerrymandered a district as you could hope for.
When the recently formed election commission redrew the district lines after the last census, the 8th CD lined up as one of the one of the most evenly drawn in the country. And let’s just say — with Dems winning the district by around 2,000 votes in 2022 and Republican Gabe Evans winning by about the same margin in 2024 — it’s been a promise well kept.
And this year, according to the authoritative Cook Political Report, Colorado’s 8th is one of only 17 truly tossup House districts, meaning it will be among the most watched, and most expensive, districts in November’s election. The winner of the district could conceivably go a long way to determining which party wins the House.
In The Sun article I mentioned, Sun political reporters Taylor Dolven and Jesse Paul take a look at whether former state Rep. Shannon Bird’s relatively moderate voting record might hurt her in the more liberal 8th CD Democratic primary while, in fact, helping her in the far less liberal general election — if she makes it that far.
The article doesn’t attempt to be conclusive. It doesn’t point to a clear-cut favorite in the race between Bird and her main primary opponent, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, D-Commerce City. Evan Munsing, a Thornton Democrat, is also considered a viable candidate. Like Rutinel, he is running to Bird’s left.
Rutinel has the most money and support among local activists. But does that mean a progressive can win in such an evenly split district where unaffiliated voters will likely determine the winner? Some national Democrats are skeptical.
In this year particularly, it seems electability is the critical issue.
But the question of electability is a tricky one. If we based our votes purely on supposed electability, Barack Obama, just as one example, would never have made it past the Senate. Or to take another example, who would have thought, back in the day, that King Donald of Orange would be elected anything?
Bird’s rivals have been hitting her hard on votes she made on bills limiting state and local cooperation with Trump and his ICE goons. In a sweeping immigration proposal last session, co-sponsored by Rutinel, she was the only Democrat in the House Appropriations Committee to vote against it. The bill came out of committee anyway, and every Democrat in the House voted for it, other than Bird, who was absent for the vote. And Polis signed the bill into law. This can’t help but matter, you’d think, in a district that’s approximately 40% Latino.
The national Dems haven’t been weighing in, at least publicly, in the critical race. But it’s thought that Bird is probably their preferred candidate. Rutinel has raised the most money. But Bird’s campaign just sent out an email quoting the Cook Political Report as saying:
”But while Rutinel may have the edge in the primary, his earlier position on some issues, crucial to the district’s economy, could make him more vulnerable … His (stands) against the meat and dairy industries as a student activist and environmental attorney gives Republicans a strong line of attack against him in the general election.”
Cook also notes that Rutinel has not been exactly embracing the progressive label lately. And that “progressive leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders have not endorsed him.”
Which, I guess, could be seen as a favor.
And yet, there’s this from Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, another authoritative political web site, who told the Colorado Times Recorder: “Rutinel is one of the leading candidates that Republicans think they’d like to run against … because they see him as sort of a left-wing candidate. But I think that we’re also in a time where particularly House elections are kind of parliamentary in the sense that it’s party driven …”
In other words, if there’s a Democratic sweep in the midterms, which history suggests there will be, you know what happens. Repeat after me: The party in power whose leader has terrible polling numbers nearly always loses bigly. So maybe any viable Democrat would win.
If you think that’s true — or want to believe it’s true — you could safely vote for whichever Democrat you truly prefer.
But the question remains, is it true? That’s just one more thing I hold against Trump. He’s making us think too hard about electability. What we should be thinking about is who’s the best candidate to get us out of this mess.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
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