Colorado Democrat-Aligned Group Pushes State to Enter Redistricting Fight

A Holder-backed group seeks to override the state’s independent commission and adopt a Democrat-drawn map for 2028 and 2030.

The Rocky Mountains rise beyond the Denver skyline on Jan. 24, 2016. Charlie Riedel/AP Photo

A Democratic-aligned group backed by former Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder filed ballot initiative paperwork on Feb. 18 in Colorado that would ask voters to temporarily override the state’s independent congressional redistricting commission and install a new map for 2028 and 2030 that could be advantageous for Democrats.

The group, Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, filed four versions of the ballot measure with Colorado state officials. The proposed map would give Democrats a competitive advantage in seven of the state’s eight congressional districts, a possible net gain of three seats from the current split of four Democratic seats and four Republican seats.

The targeted Republican-held seats belong to Rep. Jeff Hurd in the Third Congressional District, Rep. Jeff Crank in the Fifth District, and Rep. Gabe Evans in the Eighth District.

Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, issued a statement on Feb. 18 saying that Republicans “have demonstrated that their mid-decade gerrymanders will not end after the 2026 midterms.”

“Colorado did not choose this fight,” he said. “As Republicans pursue mid-decade gerrymanders in other states, the American people, including Coloradans, will fight back.”

The group says the effort is a direct response to Republican-led redistricting in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. The redistricting war started when Texas in August 2025 approved a new congressional map—which advocates say corrects several unconstitutionally drawn districts—that could net Republicans up to five additional seats in the 2026 midterms. California voters approved a Democratic-leaning map this past fall in response, with other states following like dominoes in an escalating partisan redistricting game.

Group spokesman Curtis Hubbard said in a statement: “No one wanted to have to take this action—independent redistricting is the ideal. But with [President] Donald Trump and [Make America Great Again] 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 created the independent redistricting commission in 2018, with more than 70 percent supporting the constitutional amendment at the time. The new proposal would suspend the commission for two election cycles, reverting to it after the 2030 census. A March 3 review hearing before the Colorado General Assembly’s nonpartisan Legislative Council is the first procedural step.

Republicans were highly critical of the moves in Colorado.

“This is gerrymandering at its worst and a blatant power grab by a sketchy, dark-money Democrat organization that refuses to disclose who its donors are,” Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft told The Epoch Times in an email. “70 percent of Coloradans voted to create an independent redistricting commission in 2018 to prevent secret power grabs like this.”

Evans—who sits in a highly competitive seat he flipped in 2024, defeating Democratic incumbent Yadira Caraveo—also criticized the proposal.

“For years, Colorado Democrats lectured everyone about the sanctity of the independent redistricting commission and claimed it was the gold standard for fairness,” Alexandria Cullen, spokeswoman for the Evans campaign, told The Epoch Times in a statement.

“Now that Coloradans have elected four Republicans to Congress, they want to change the rules. This isn’t about fairness—it’s a partisan power grab to protect their failing extreme agenda from the will of Colorado voters.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already listed both Crank’s Fifth District and Evans’s Eighth District on its 2026 Districts in Play target list, meaning that national Democrats are pursuing the same seats via two separate tracks: a national campaign effort and now a proposed post-2026 congressional district map redraw.

The Epoch Times reached out to the offices of Hurd and Crank for comment but did not hear back by publication time.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft. The Epoch Times regrets the error.