National Democrats take note: Colorado just demonstrated what the next year of political messaging may look like. A lot will be Democrats making difficult decisions dictated by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill and Republicans trying to shift the blame.
Earlier this year, Trump’s signature legislation squeaked through Congress with the near-unanimous support of Republicans. Each of Colorado’s congressional Republicans voted for the bill. All the state’s Democrats voted against it.
A primary feature of the bill centers around cuts to future Medicaid funding. The bill cut roughly $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act marketplace assistance. That in turn will cost about 16 million Americans health care coverage.
Plenty of those people will be in Colorado.
It will also come as a surprise for many of the people directly impacted. For a lot of people, the prevailing image of Medicaid centers on inner city poor, the homeless and welfare recipients working the system. Many will find out that Medicaid assistance extends far beyond that and includes them as well.
In fact, a huge percentage of Medicaid helps rural Coloradans. When folks go down to “the local clinic” with an injury or illness, Medicaid often picks up the tab. It has helped keep rural hospitals open and provided services that people in small towns far from Denver need. And those services are going to start drying up thanks to the GOP bill.
When they do, surprised recipients will be angry and looking for someone to blame. During the special legislative session that just ended, we got a sneak peak at the fingerpointing that will surely dominate the next year.
Gov. Jared Polis and Democrats made it clear that the cuts were necessary due to the GOP-passed bill. For example, the state will save $38 million by forgoing a 1.6% rate hike to health care providers who see Medicaid recipients. Republicans will claim that is not a cut — providers will still get the same amount they got before.
That is disingenuous at best and better described as a dirty lie.
Think of it like this: if you signed an employment agreement to get paid $50,000 in year one with the promise to get an $800 raise each year, a change that took away the annual raise would feel like a cut. And it is — you do not get as much as you were promised and relied on. It could change whether you can pay rent, pay for groceries, pay for school supplies or pay for your own health care coverage.
That is precisely what will happen to health care providers who relied on those rate hikes. They will feel the budget pinch sooner than later. Some will not survive.
And that will be the second part of the Republican messaging: Democrats voted to close rural hospitals and health care providers. State Democrats made the choice to make that cut, not Republicans.
That is even a more specious argument. The only reason Republicans did not make the choice is because they have no real say in a state where Democrats hold all levers of political power. But the crisis was caused by their Republican brethren at the federal level.
Basically, Republicans will hope that voters are too naive and the policy too complex for them to be held accountable. That is the plan. Bet that you can lie to voters’ faces and they will not know the difference.
That is what Reps. Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd will spend the next year doing.
As I pointed out in May, Colorado’s two most vulnerable congressional Republicans have the two highest percentages of Medicaid recipients in the state. In Evans’ CD8, 29% of the population relies on Medicaid help; likewise, 31% of Hurd’s CD3 receives aid through the program.
They will claim they really helped strengthen Medicaid for people who “really need it” — though I expect those who have been cut will wonder why they do not qualify. They will scapegoat migrants in a xenophobic appeal with no basis in reality. They will point out that nothing has changed, conveniently leaving out that they ensured the most oppressive provisions do not kick in until just after the 2026 election.
Whether they will get away with it will depend on two things: how well Democrats counter-message and how much effort voters put into understanding the root causes.
For their part, Democrats tend to overexplain and lose voters in the subtle complexity inherent in good governance and tough choices. They need to stick to the emotional appeal that Republicans hurt their constituents to provide kickbacks to billionaires. Keep it simple.
Voters? They need to get more trustworthy information than a TikTok clip or podcast host. They might be entertaining, but they do not have the experience or knowledge base of local providers and professional journalists. When they cannot access care, they need to ask why and what led to that outcome.
Once Labor Day ends, the 2026 election will begin. Thanks to Colorado’s special session, the rest of the country has a template for what that will look like.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on BlueSky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.
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