DENVER — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis donned safety glasses and seized the handle of the electric saw, guiding the buzzing blade down through a stack of printed-out executive orders dating back decades.
Polis’ pre-Christmas news conference was designed to highlight how he was repealing unnecessary regulations, and it caught the eye of a prominent Republican — one the Democratic governor’s party has grown to despise.
“Nice work,” wrote Vivek Ramaswamy, the brash MAGA-disciple who President-elect Donald Trump tapped to help slash government spending, on the social media site X. “Send that shredder over to (the Department of Government Efficiency) next month!”
Polis reposted Ramaswamy’s message and continued to banter with him on the site about closing a federal cheese facility in Missouri. It was only the latest example of how Polis, who prides himself on his quirky independence, is walking a difficult line with the incoming administration.
As Democratic governors across the country adapt to Trump’s victory — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, for instance, reached out to Trump to find common ground while California Gov. Gavin Newsom has prepared for legal battles — Polis stands out.
In the days following the election, he joined Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to form an ostensibly nonpartisan group of governors to “protect democracy,” a seeming reprise of Democrats’ resistance during Trump’s first term and in line with Newsom’s battened-hatches approach.
But days later, Colorado’s governor zagged, going beyond Hochul’s conciliatory call.
Polis cheered Trump’s nomination of vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, noting he had worked with Kennedy before. Polis later defended his comments by saying he personally supports vaccination and hoped Kennedy would take on “big pharma and corporate ag.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, Polis explained his outreach with his go-to refrain that isn’t often heard in today’s hyperpolarized politics: “We can get good ideas from the left and the right.”
“There might be some people who are over-simplistically saying they are either for or against whatever is going on in Washington,” he said. “I think it’s a little bit more nuanced than that.”
Some Democratic activists and operatives began texting each other in disbelief after Polis’ praise of Kennedy. The Colorado governor has been on several shortlists as a possible 2028 presidential contender, but now a few Democrats are moving him down several spots.
“I think a lot of Democrats have learned the wrong lessons from this race, and he’s the prototype of that,” Bakari Sellers, a prominent Democratic strategist in South Carolina, a top early primary state in 2028, said of Polis. “After 18 months, when people look at the failures of this administration and you were the one to cuddle up to it, they’re going to remember.”
Polis supporters see the governor’s actions as what one called “vintage Jared.” The openly gay, wealthy entrepreneur-turned-politician has a distinctly libertarian bent. He resisted imposing mask or vaccine mandates during the coronavirus pandemic, pushed to eliminate all state income taxes, and has spoken fulsomely about the benefits of capitalism and free trade.
“Jared’s not picking a fight; that’s not his style,” said Ted Trimpa, a veteran Colorado Democratic strategist who’s known Polis for decades. “It’s not what he does. He’s not Gavin,” Trimpa added, a reference to the California governor, who has highlighted his own ideological opposition to Trump.
“I do think he is always going to look for ways to work with Trump, even if he vehemently disagrees with other things Trump is doing,” said Democrat Steve Fenberg, the departing state Senate president who has known and worked with Polis for over a decade. “The question is how do you balance that with Trump attacking actual institutions and norms?”
When asked about balancing his fears with his concerns that Trump could threaten the Republic, Polis said, “I’m never afraid to speak out where I disagree.” He has voiced concerns over some of Trump’s proposed policies but has rarely criticized Trump himself, as other Democrats often do.
One likely area of disagreement is immigration. Trump has zeroed in on Colorado as an example of what he contends are the costs of unchecked migration.
He held a rally in Aurora, a city of 400,000 east of Denver where video surfaced of heavily armed men going door to door in an apartment complex housing recent Venezuelan migrants. A man was shot to death the night the video was recorded.
Trump used the incident in a single apartment building to paint a picture of a city the size of Tampa overrun by immigrant gangs. He vowed to dub his national mass deportation program “Operation Aurora.”
The city government had a long-running battle with the owner of the apartment building and says it will close in the next few weeks. Last month, police said more than a dozen people seized and assaulted a couple in the same building as their apartment was ransacked.
Polis, who in 2004 founded a charter school for immigrant children, clashed with Trump during the campaign over migrants and safety, saying crime was down in Aurora and Colorado overall. He now says that he’s eager to work with the incoming administration to deport criminals, but draws the line at going further.
“With regards to folks that haven’t violated state laws, I don’t think there’s a lot of cooperation that they can expect from local employers or communities in Colorado,” Polis said.
To Fenberg, the state lawmaker, the Democrats’ resistance during Trump’s first term no longer seems like a winning strategy. Polis’ approach to the new administration could offer a roadmap, he said.
“We are going to need leaders like Jared to help show us what the new formula should be to be effective at being an opposition party,” he said.
