DENVER — Two of Colorado’s newly seated Republican congressmen have been forced to bob and weave across an increasingly tricky political minefield amid a flurry of Trump administration executive orders and policy shifts that could complicate their midterm elections next year.

President Donald Trump’s actions so far have spooked global financial markets and sparked street protests. For U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, who represents Colorado’s newest congressional district north of Denver, and Rep. Jeff Hurd, the congressman for a sprawling 27-county Western Slope-anchored district, the president’s aggressive tariff and immigration policies have put pressure on sectors of the economy — agriculture, ranching and manufacturing — that play outsized roles in their districts.

In March, both legislators were put “on notice” by Emily’s List as “top targets for defeat in the 2026 midterm elections.” The political advocacy group supports Democratic women candidates who favor abortion rights in their bids for office across the country.

The hazards for Evans, a freshman representative from Fort Lupton, are greater than for Hurd because his 8th Congressional District was created four years ago to be Colorado’s most politically competitive — a promise it’s lived up to in two election cycles.

“Hurd has a bit more wiggle room than Evans does,” said Colorado State University political science professor Kyle Saunders, who has been closely watching both districts.

Evans, who narrowly beat incumbent Rep. Yadira Caraveo in the November election, was the only Republican House member in Colorado to make this month’s Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s list of “districts in play.” That means his eventual Democratic opponent will be getting a targeted splash of national money in next year’s election.

“There is a long way to go yet,” Saunders said, “but Evans will have to be very careful with how he plays his cards over the next year-plus — both in how closely he stands with Trump as well as with any votes that can be used against him in the 2026 campaign.”

While both congressmen have largely toed Trump’s line at the start of the Republican’s second administration, there are signs they are willing to push back — albeit cautiously.

In early March, they were among 21 Republicans who signed a letter to Rep. Jason Smith, the GOP chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. They urged their party to keep clean energy tax credits from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act climate law that fund development of “traditional and renewable energy sources alike.”

The appeal came in the face of efforts by Trump to make it easier for companies to produce oil and gas and to empower public officials to halt already approved clean-energy projects.

Meanwhile, Hurd this month took a public swipe at the president by introducing a bipartisan bill that would require that unilateral tariffs proposed by the executive branch undergo congressional review, and be limited in duration.

“I think it’s pretty clear under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that Congress has authority with respect to tariffs,” Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney, told The Denver Post in an interview. “I thought it was an important thing for me to be part of the legislation that would reassert Congress’ authority.”

Former Colorado Republican Party chair Dick Wadhams said both Hurd and Evans “have done really well” in their first 100 days pledging fealty to Trump’s agenda. They’ve done so without attaching themselves too closely to some of its harder edges, he said — like supporting false claims of a stolen 2020 election.

“Gabe is first and foremost a congressman for the 8th District,” Wadhams said. “And I think Jeff Hurd is in the tradition of what 3rd District voters are looking for. They’ve set themselves up as strong incumbents.”

'Tying them to Trump'

But the 2026 election is still more than 18 months away. A lot can happen between now and then, Saunders said.

Trump’s polling numbers have fallen since he took office on Jan. 20, according to a CBS News-YouGov survey taken a week ago. His approval rating has flipped from 53% in favor of his overall performance in February to 53% disapproval now.

Similar declines were recorded in the poll on Trump’s handling of the economy.

“What we can say is that President Trump’s honeymoon is very likely over,” Saunders said. “Does that mean that his favorability will decline further from here? What we do know is that economic uncertainty, rising prices and other fundamentals do not usually help the sitting president — we saw that as recently as President Biden’s struggles with inflation in 2023 and 2024.”

The danger of an unpopular president is that unaffiliated voters may break towards Democrats next year, Saunders said. In Evans’ case, his prospects are complicated by the fact that the 8th District, which covers portions of Weld, Adams and Larimer counties, has an 8,000-voter registration advantage for Democrats, he said.

“In a district where Evans only won by approximately 2,400 votes, those factors alone could easily turn the tide the other way,” Saunders said.

Hal Bidlack, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who unsuccessfully ran in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District nearly 20 years ago, advises the Democrats running in the 3rd and 8th districts in 2026 to burden their opponents with Trump — and the task of trying to explain Trump. He also taught political science at the Air Force Academy for nearly 20 years.

“I would have the attitude of tying them to Trump as tightly as I can,” the Democrat said. “I would make them defend Trump and Trumpism completely.”

Hurd, who beat Democratic challenger Adam Frisch by 5 percentage points last year, hasn’t drawn a Democratic challenger yet. But Evans has two of note already.

Caraveo, who on Tuesday announced a bid to retake the seat she lost nearly six months ago, told The Post that Evans is “falling in line completely with Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”

“He’s not really taking into account that this is a very middle-of-the-road district that doesn’t fit into the right MAGA extremism that he’s voting for, and I haven’t seen him veer at all from the path that Donald Trump wants him to be on,” she said in an interview.

Her Democratic primary opponent, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, voiced a similar criticism of Evans. He announced his candidacy less than a month after Evans took office Jan. 3.

“Even though Congressman Evans was elected to represent the people of CD-8, his only focus has been representing the interests of the ultrawealthy and defending President Trump’s disastrous policies against working people,” Rutinel wrote in an email to The Post.

Evans, a U.S. Army veteran and former Arvada cop, dismisses the criticism.

“I’ve done over 40 in-person meetings, roundtables, town halls — things of that nature,” he said. “My staff has done over 300 other meetings, and so we’re 100% committed to being out, active and engaged in the district.”

While Evans strongly backs the administration’s efforts to secure the border and deport criminals and gang members who are in the country illegally, he often tells the story of his grandfather, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico “the right way.”

The 8th District is Colorado’s most heavily Latino district.

“We have to recognize their key contributions,” he said of immigrants, “and we have to make sure that we are moving the ball forward to get some sort of meaningful immigration reform — so that the people who are trying to do it the right way and are bringing so many positive contributions to our communities don’t get left behind.”

Tariffs and farming

In the meantime, the political winds have already started blowing ahead of 2026.

Earlier this week, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, met with about 30 northern Colorado manufacturers in Loveland — right on the doorstep of Evans’ district. The discussion focused on the “devastating impacts of Trump’s tariff taxes on the industry and economy,” according to a news release from the governor’s office.

But manufacturers are hardly the only sector impacted by tariffs. Trade duties are especially challenging for farmers and ranchers in Colorado. They need to remain competitive on price to sell their products overseas and need the costs of imported equipment and parts to remain reasonable.

Chad Franke, the president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, said many farmers in Colorado desire a more level playing field in global trade but would rather not incur financial damage trying to get there.

“The broad-ranging tariffs are going to be harmful to family farmers and ranchers because of reciprocal tariffs, which will be levied (by foreign countries) against commodities,” he said. “We’re hopeful they can put pressure on Washington, D.C., to lessen the impact of broad tariffs on the ag economy.”

Hurd’s bill calling for congressional review of tariffs could be an effective check on their impacts, Franke said.

But any effects from Trump’s trade policies on Colorado farmers, Franke said, won’t come into view until closer to harvest season — “If there is going to be a problem, we’ll hear about it through the summer and into the fall” — when it’s that much closer to the November 2026 election.

Evans acknowledges that tariffs aren’t popular among producers in his district. But he says farmers and ranchers are also tired of being taken advantage of by other countries.

“Nobody loves the chaos, but they’re actually pretty excited about the potential for the playing field to be level,” he said.

Evans, who as a state lawmaker represented some of the same area north of Denver that’s now in his congressional district, said farmers tell him they want nothing more than to crack markets like Spain, Italy, Thailand and Vietnam.

“They’ve had willing buyers. We’ve had willing producers here, but they couldn’t get through with the lack of trade deals in the last five years,” he said. “And so I think what we’re seeing with this administration is (that) through tariffs, they’re using that as a mechanism to get those trade deals done.”

Hurd sees tariffs as a “tool in the toolbox” to creating a fairer global trading system. But they must be administered judiciously, with an eye toward limiting their “breadth and scope.”

“I do believe that tariffs can have a strategic role when it comes to approaching these issues, but I just think we need to be thoughtful in how we approach it,” Hurd said. He added that “broad-based tariffs cause me more concern than tariffs that are targeted towards a specific end.

Despite his support for Trump’s goals of bringing manufacturing back to the United States, Hurd said it can’t be done at the expense of Congress’ power. Thus, the bill he introduced earlier this month.

“We just need to make sure that we do that the right way and that we comport with the requirements under the Constitution,” he said.

Trump’s checkered Colorado history

Bidlack, the retired lieutenant colonel and political scientist, lauded Hurd for signing on to the bill despite its dim prospects for passage in a Republican-majority Congress with deep allegiances to Trump.

“It is remarkable to me that a freshman Republican would thumb his nose at Trump so dramatically in what is a doomed effort,” Bidlack said of Hurd, who has never publicly revealed whether he has voted for the president. “But it’s smart to distance himself from Trump.”

That’s especially true in Colorado, where Trump was beaten by Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden four years ago and Kamala Harris last year, Wadhams said.

Hurd has taken a principled stand guarding the separation of powers at the top of American government, Wadhams said — a position that should help him in a district that nearly ousted Republican Lauren Boebert in 2022 over concerns about her behavior and gravitas.

“He’s a truly constitutional conservative,” Wadhams said.

Despite the strong Republican lean of the 3rd Congressional District, which hugs the borders of Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico and swoops from Rangely to Pueblo, it was less than 20 years ago that Democrat U.S. Rep. John Salazar held the seat. If public opinion goes into a tailspin under the second Trump administration and Democrats find the right contender next year, Wadhams said, the district has a chance of going blue again.

“A Trump presidency is a surprise every day,” he said.

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