Colorado is losing economic ground. My home county, Weld County, is moving the other way. That contrast helps explain why Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District may be one of the most consequential energy races in the country this November.
Colorado households are paying more for electricity thanks to bad state policy. In 2025, Colorado’s average retail rates were the highest in the Mountain states and ranked 21st-highest nationally.
The state’s energy affordability trajectory would be worse without abundant in-state oil and natural gas production. Much of that energy comes from Weld County, which sits at the heart of the Eighth District. Weld produces 83% of Colorado’s crude oil and 56% of its natural gas.
I live in Weld County. Oil and natural gas are more than an industry. It’s our family, friends, and neighbors. They are the people we see at school, church, the grocery store, and under the Friday night lights. Their work supports other businesses and generates tax revenue that helps fund roads, schools, fire districts, libraries, local nonprofits, and other public services.
And Weld County is thriving.
It is now Colorado’s fastest-growing large county. Census estimates put its population at 378,426 in 2025, an increase of 1.92% in a single year, nearly five times Colorado’s statewide growth rate. Weld has now surpassed neighboring Larimer County in population.
Despite that rapid growth, Weld County government has no outstanding debt and no county sales tax. It maintains one of the lowest county mill levies in Colorado, healthy cash reserves, and the ability to pay cash for major capital projects rather than borrowing.
Energy production isn’t the only reason Weld County has prospered, but oil and natural gas have played an enormous role in creating the economic and tax base that makes this possible. Weld’s success is even more striking because Colorado is moving in the other direction.
As a state dominated by Democratic Party rule, Colorado dropped from 11th to 17th in U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best States rankings and fell from 11th to 25th in CNBC’s latest ranking of the best states for business. U.S. News ranked Colorado 45th in fiscal stability.
Weld County, meanwhile, shows that economic growth, abundant energy production, and fiscal discipline can coexist. The choice before CD 8 voters is: do we send to Congress the Democrat challenger Manny Rutinel, whose record reflects Colorado’s progressive-left ideology, or incumbent Republican and member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Gabe Evans, who more closely reflects Weld County’s prosperity?
Rutinel came to elected office after working as an attorney for Earthjustice, fighting to hold corporate polluters accountable.” He was arrested and charged in November 2019 for storming the Yale-Harvard football game, along with dozens of other protesters, chanting “hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have got to go,” to demand the universities divest. He told the Colorado Sun last year that he supported banning hydraulic fracturing.
Today, Rutinel has reversed his position on hydraulic fracturing, and his campaign says that he “knows an all of the above energy solution to help lower energy costs is more important than ever.” It’s more likely that he knows that campaigning to ban the technology that made Colorado the fourth-largest oil-producing state in the U.S. is unpopular.
And the stakes extend well beyond Weld County.
Colorado’s electricity mandates are already some of the most aggressive in the country, as documented by Always On Energy Research and the Institute for Energy Research in our recent report, Blue States, High Rates.
The state requires qualifying utilities to reduce emissions by 80% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Governor Jared Polis (D) wants 100% renewable energy by 2040. Colorado is also requiring natural gas utilities to reduce emissions 22% by 2030 and 41% by 2035, which will require an “unprecedented, nearly overnight transformation of the heating appliance market.” In other words, homeowners will be pushed into electrification at great cost.
Evans has spent his first term in Congress championing affordability and streamlining permitting. He supports “a safe, reliable, and secure energy policy,” and “increasing domestic production of energy resources.”
Rep. Evans’s bill, the State Planning for Reliability and Affordability Act, would require states to ensure their energy plans are sufficient and meet demand with reliable facilities. He says that the bill will help hold state utility regulators accountable and force consideration of “the impacts of energy reliability on consumer costs.”
He is also the lead sponsor of the Ratepayer Protection Act, which aims to set federal guidelines for data centers and other large loads to cover the full incremental costs of the infrastructure they need.
Evans has been a strong critic of the state’s direction since his time in the Colorado House, and has said that, “Colorado’s energy crisis is due to none other than the state’s ruling Democrats that have prioritized out-of-touch policies over the hard-working people’s pocketbooks. Rates continue to skyrocket, while reliability continues to plummet.”
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) projects that Xcel Energy, the largest utility in the state, may see residential rates rise 20 to 30% by 2027, and as much as 55% by 2029, over 2024 levels, if load growth comes in below forecast.
This is a result of Colorado prioritizing carbon emissions over whether the lights stay on or families can afford their power. The district producing Colorado’s energy should think hard before sending someone who has spent a career working against the industry and driving up costs for Colorado families.
Which brings the CD 8 race back to Weld County.
Colorado is losing ground while Weld County is gaining people, growing its economy, producing the energy Colorado needs, and doing it without county debt or a county sales tax.
The people of Colorado’s Eighth District should ask themselves a simple question before they vote: Do they want Washington to look a little more like Weld County, or Weld County to look a lot more like the rest of Colorado?
Amy Oliver Cooke is the founder and president of Always On Energy Research and a Weld County, Colorado resident.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
