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The award wasn’t the greatest gift of the weekend
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Don't Eat Toast Naked, Approved, Commentary, State

The award wasn’t the greatest gift of the weekend

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Don't Eat Toast Naked Drake Hunter reflects on receiving Rocky Mountain Voice's Trailblazer Award during RMV Freedom Fest and why the weekend's greatest lesson came after the applause ended. Some weeks are so full you don’t know where to begin. This was one of those weeks. For more than two years, I’ve had the privilege of serving alongside the incredible team at Rocky Mountain Voice. What began as writing a weekly devotional has grown into friendships, opportunities, and experiences I never could have imagined. Over the past several months, that journey has taken me to places I never expected—including attending Turning Point USA in Phoenix with Heidi Ganahl, flying on a private jet for the first time, and helpi...
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Tenth Circuit strikes down DOJ detention theory, ruling affects Colorado courts
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Tenth Circuit strikes down DOJ detention theory, ruling affects Colorado courts

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Rigoberto Santillan Quiroz entered the United States without inspection in 2006.  ICE arrested him at a traffic stop on November 2, 2025 and initiated removal proceedings on the ground that he entered without admission or parole.  His federal habeas petition, filed in the Western District of Oklahoma, became Quiroz v. Mullin.  On June 30, the Tenth Circuit ruled in his favor, covering six states and striking down the theory behind 722 such petitions filed in Colorado in 2026 through June 15. What the court decided Judges Federico, Bacharach, and Ebel produced a 48-page unanimous opinion, with Federico authoring.  The government's theory rested on §1225(b)(2)(A) of the Immigration and National...
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Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Getting on is the easy part
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Getting on is the easy part

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice I’ve spent the last few months digging deeply into the Colorado voter roll from all sorts of different angles and although politicians of a certain party and their supporters are quick to parrot that Colorado exemplifies the “gold standard” of election integrity, that very definitely does NOT appear to be the case after a close examination of Colorado’s voter roll, the rightful starting point for any such assessment of the quality of election integrity in this or any other state. A closing line from the Eagles' 1976 hit song ‘Hotel California’ seems to be the most appropriate way to summarize the apparent philosophy behind the approach taken by Colorado’s legislature and the current Secretary of State when it comes to the...
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Colorado primary delivers a warning conservatives shouldn’t ignore
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado primary delivers a warning conservatives shouldn’t ignore

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice What happened in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District should get everyone’s attention. Democratic socialist Melat Kiros just defeated Diana DeGette, a 15-term Democratic incumbent who has represented Denver for nearly three decades. This was not a conservative beating a liberal. This was the activist left defeating the Democratic establishment from inside its own party. That matters. The Democratic Party increasingly has no effective guardrails against its most radical elements. The fringe is no longer staying on the fringe. It is organizing, primarying incumbents, capturing safe seats, and moving ideas once considered extreme into the party’s mainstream. That is dangerous for the country because democratic sociali...
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Socialists and Progressives Score Stunning Primary Victories in Colorado
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TownHall.com, Approved, State

Socialists and Progressives Score Stunning Primary Victories in Colorado

By: Matt Vespa | Townhall The game has changed. While known for being tough, Colorado is now another incubator for Marxist radicals. The Democrats face a full-blown insurgency. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), once considered a sure shot for the 2026 gubernatorial nomination, lost to Attorney General Phil Weiser. The biggest shock was the defeat of Rep. Diana DeGette, who has served in Congress for nearly 30 years, and was ousted by challenger Melat Kiros, who, among many things, said that we deserved the 9/11 attacks  Advertisement Bennet had a 30-point lead in the polls but was gradually ground down by attacks that portrayed him as a DC insider.  https://twitter.com/DecisionDeskHQ/status/2072146163755528311 https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status...
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Who will shape Colorado’s 2030 census? Nonprofit funding raises questions
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Who will shape Colorado’s 2030 census? Nonprofit funding raises questions

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project And a nonprofit shall lead them.... The Sky Hi article linked first below details how the State of Colorado plans to get out there ahead of the 2030 census to make sure we get all the “hard to count” residents we can. The census is critically important to our state. So many things from political representation to federal money to state programs run off the data the census produces. It’s probably not a surprise, then, that the state wants to get out there and make sure we count as many people as possible. And as you can see by checking a nearby calendar, we’re starting early. These counting efforts are not new. I wrote a newsletter back in 2025 (see the second link below if you want the context), covering h...
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Colorado Primary Sends Shockwaves Through State and National Politics
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Primary Sends Shockwaves Through State and National Politics

By: Ernest Luning | Colorado Politics Voters in Colorado’s Democratic primary on Tuesday night mostly let their elected officials know that they’re fed up with the party’s Washington politicians and ready to back the most aggressive fighters they can find. At the same time, the voters who cast ballots in the Republican primary mostly embraced the GOP’s establishment, throwing the beleaguered party a potential lifeline in a state that hasn’t rewarded the party’s candidates with statewide wins in the last decade. It was a mixed bag for the two camps, as early frontrunners fell or struggled to keep it close in one of the most wide-open primaries the state has seen in years, with some standout exceptions keeping the night from delivering a simple message. Democratic...
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Colorado GOP Governor Primary Too Close To Call As Kirkmeyer Holds Narrow Lead
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado GOP Governor Primary Too Close To Call As Kirkmeyer Holds Narrow Lead

By Jesse Paul and Olivia Prentzel | The Colorado Sun Kirkmeyer had 41% of the vote to Marx’s 39% at 10:30 p.m. In third place was state Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs, with 20% of the vote. LARKSPUR — Colorado’s Republican primary for governor was too close to call Tuesday night, with state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer holding a slight lead over ministry leader Victor Marx in the race that will determine who gets a chance to become the state’s first Republican leader in 20 years.    Kirkmeyer had 41% of the vote to Marx’s 39% at 10:30 p.m. In third place was state Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs, with 20% of the vote. Whoever ultimately wins the primary will face Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser in November. Republicans haven’...
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How one volunteer connected the dots at RMV’s Freedom Fest
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

How one volunteer connected the dots at RMV’s Freedom Fest

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice After Freedom Fest ended, Pueblo resident Randy Thurston was still talking his way through the weekend. Not in order. One speaker reminded him of another, and a story from Saturday connected to something he had heard Friday. He was not replaying the event. He was still putting it together. "I still don't know how she pulled it off," he said, meaning Rocky Mountain Voice founder Heidi Ganahl. "I don't know how she even had that vision and then the ability to manifest it. Do you know what it took to get everybody there on the weekend before the Fourth of July? That in itself was impossible." A little later, after talking through several of the presentations, he came back to it again. "Any one of these speakers, I would've driven a thousa...
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Pride changed. I didn’t.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Pride changed. I didn’t.

By Valdamar Archuleta | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice As the world wraps up another June, filled with rainbows and unicorns, I, as a gay Republican, reflect on 30 days of what always ends up being unproductive conflict. And once again, I prepare to face the inevitable question: “How can you be a gay Republican?” Well, it’s pretty easy. Donald Trump was the first American President to take office supporting same-sex marriage. He was also the first President to wave a rainbow on the campaign trail before being elected. Which, he did right here in Colorado. Sure, this can just be tossed up as political lip service, but Trump went further. In 2019, President Donald Trump introduced the “Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America” initiative. At the same time, his adminis...
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