Election 2026: A Democratic Supermajority and Tax Reform for Colorado

Does winning a supermajority mean we have a superpower? That’s up to us.

Having a supermajority does mean we can fight to override vetoes that hurt us, that we have a better shot at getting constitutional amendments onto the ballot, and that we will have more power on committees.

But as state workers know all too well, we can’t take anything for granted. We’ve helped elect the best candidates. We’ve created the opportunities we need. Now we need to do the work to turn those opportunities into wins for workers and the people we serve.

We worked hard to defeat Proposition 132, but in the end, the billionaires behind Advance Colorado put enough money behind it to mislead voters and force it through. The consequence? Mandatory minimums projected to send nearly 900 additional people to prison each year without any funding to support housing them. That means we’re going to have to double down on our fight to stop the private prisons that drove this agenda: their lobbyists are working hard to cash in.

These ballot measure wins are really, really, really good news for us. Medicaid and education have made up more than 60% of Colorado’s general fund spending for years, forcing us to compete for scraps to fund our contract and state services.

Now, we head into a legislative session in a stronger position to fully fund our contract. And, more importantly, these wins combined with membership sign-ups of almost 2,500 over the last year, we are in a much, much stronger position as we head into collective bargaining for our new Partnership Agreement, and that is our best chance at recouping the Cost of Living Adjustments we lost last year.

We are still waiting on the outcome of a very tight race for Pueblo County Sheriff: fellow COWINS member Allen Medina is currently leading by more than 250 votes.

The Colorado State Legislature reconvenes on January 10, and we are going to hit the ground running to make the most of our wins. By joining now, you can help lead that work and have your voice heard by:

• Joining member meetings with our new governor
• Electing the members who will fight for us in bargaining
• Joining the Contract Action Teams that will inform our bargaining
• Joining the Political Committee to help guide our work in the legislature

As state employees, politics will always impact us. Let's use our union to impact politics.

Here’s a full list of all the candidates we endorsed for Congress and State Legislature who won their seats.

The COWINS team championed and helped win on two critical ballot measures when we were out on doors: Amendment 87 (Graduated Income Tax) and Proposition NN are going to help us fix Colorado’s broken budget, supporting education, healthcare, and childcare and freeing up more funds for our contract and state services.

Proposition NN was declared a win early with 56% of the vote, and our GIT coalition claimed the win last week with 99% of votes in and outstanding tallies coming in from counties that supported the amendment 2 to 1.