The legacy of Gov. Jared Polis comes into view

Jared Polis’ tenure as Colorado governor is coming to a close. So it’s time to start answering the question, How’d he do?

Every officeholder’s record is mixed, and Polis’ was mixed in this way: In some areas his performance was pretty impressive, but in others it was impressively bad. Overall he has been a competent leader who brought fact-based decision-making smarts to difficult problems, and he mostly tried to be a leader for all Coloradans regardless of partisan or social identity. As the first openly gay governor of a U.S. state, he helped advance civil rights.

But certain quirks of the Democrat’s personality and aspects of his political outlook sometimes set him at odds with the state’s liberal majority, or, in at least one notable case, against sanity. It’s often said Polis has a “libertarian streak,” but as his governorship unfolded it became ever harder not to recognize it as a conservative stripe, and, alarmingly, with the second Trump administration it morphed into a MAGA banner.

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One way to assess Polis’ governorship is by weighing his performance against his own goals. When he first ran for governor in 2018, among his top promises were that he’d bring to the state free universal preschool and full-day kindergarten, universal health care, and 100% renewable energy by 2040.

Free full-day kindergarten went into effect in 2020, and all Colorado children became eligible in 2023 for 10 free hours of preschool per week the year before they start kindergarten. These accomplishments were a significant benefit for countless families.

“The preschool issue is a significant win,” said Seth Masket, professor of political science at the University of Denver. “I have a lot of people I know, personally, who just said, ‘This really helped my life.'”

It’s a different story with universal health care. Polis signed a bill that created the Colorado Option, a regulated, standardized plan that private insurers must offer on the state’s health insurance exchange. But that’s as close as he came to what during his campaign he envisioned as “a universal, single-payer option” among a consortium of Western states.

He acknowledged last month that the state will fall short of producing 100% renewable energy by 2040.

Another way to judge Polis’ tenure is by his legislative record. He made a big effort at the Legislature to address the state’s affordable housing crisis, and he achieved some progress, including bills to encourage transit-oriented housing and accessory dwelling units. But he also suffered major setbacks, such as in 2023 when a priority housing bill he strongly backed died. His approach to the issue exemplified his imperious style, which came to nettle fellow Democrats in the statehouse.

Gov. Polis again vetoes Colorado bill to ease union collective bargaining

“He was very, very hands on, on the Legislature,” said Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat whose term in the House is concurrent with Polis’ governorship. Polis kept tight control over members of his staff who worked with lawmakers.

“I’ve sat in committee and watched them pull people out of committee into the hallway to convince them in committee to vote a certain way,” Froelich said.

This blurred the constitutional boundaries between government branches.

“And then he would swoop in and do really weird vetoes, and people would get really mad at him,” she said.

A defining feature of Polis’ legislative agenda was his two vetoes of bills passed last year and this year that would have eased the process to form a union in Colorado. The vetoes were among the actions that alienated Polis from a core Democratic constituency and the progressive wing of his party.

But he will also be remembered for his consequential role in several legislative bright spots, such as the transformation of state oil and gas regulation so that it safeguards public health, abolition of the death penalty, and post-Dobbs protection of abortion access.

Polis’ management of his own branch of government was marred by multiple instances of dysfunction. There were signs of trouble during the COVID-19 pandemic, when alleged mismanagement at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment led to a “brain drain,” as CPR reported at the time. The state’s new Behavioral Health Administration, created under Polis’ guidance, has endured a parade of failed leaders, the most recent of which was hired even though she was under investigation for theft. The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing was recently found to have lost the state millions over years due a miscalculation, and the director was forced to resign. High turnover and complaints of a toxic work environment have beset the Department of Human Services.

Asked about Polis’ management of state agencies, spokesperson Eric Maruyama wrote in an email, “We are committed to learning from our successes and taking quick action to address challenges … Operational excellence is an ongoing top goal of the Polis administration, and the evidence shows major improvements in state services from reducing housing and occupational license approval times to increasing access to the MyColorado app with nearly 1.9 million users, and expanding quick and convenient online DMV services.”

The governor will also be judged by his performance in moments of crisis. Polis during the pandemic led with a reassuring competence, intelligence and balance, and he is justly credited for the way he guided the state through that unpredictable threat. There was no government approach to COVID that could have pleased everyone, but Polis protected Colorado with the right mix of restrictions, restraint, messaging and action.

“Big success,” Froelich said of Polis during the pandemic. “Colorado came back. He held the line. We came back quicker and better than a lot of places.”

Polis enjoyed positive national attention for his COVID policies. But he has also drawn national attention, not the good kind, for his response to a more recent crisis — the second Trump administration. Polis too often has aligned himself with the president in ways that range from disappointing to weird to inexplicable.

The Colorado governor joins team MAGA

When President Donald Trump appointed conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, most reality-based Americans understood Kennedy to be a danger to public health. But Polis applauded the appointment. 

In early 2025, Polis welcomed major elements of Trump’s mass deportation plan, and later he tried to force a state agency to share some residents’ personal identifying information with immigration authorities, a move that a court blocked.

But his decision to release Tina Peters from prison was the real kicker. Peters is an unrepentant Republican election denier who was convicted of felonies for her role in a security breach in her own election office when she was Mesa County clerk. Trump, based not on law but politics, repeatedly demanded that she be freed. Peters was still litigating her case when Polis short-circuited the legal process by commuting her sentence. She never showed remorse for her crimes.

Polis justified this unearned act of clemency by saying Peters’ nine-year sentence was unusually long and that she was unfairly punished for protected speech. But this explanation falls apart considering other statements he’s made about Peters, such as that “the nation needs to have a reconciliation and healing,” and given the damning account of the case by two members of the state’s clemency board.

Colorado election officials from both parties said Peters’ release was a serious blow to democracy. Polis did an enormous favor for Trump, and for what? He’s already paid a huge political price, and the Peters commutation is certain to be one of the first things history says about Polis. The most common response to the move was, “What was he thinking?”

It wasn’t too long ago when Polis would regularly show up on national lists of Democrats who could run for president. Not anymore.

“I can’t imagine who would be encouraging him to do so,” Masket said. “That may have been, I’d say, an outside shot a few years ago. I really don’t see that happening today. I can’t imagine any Democrats rallying behind him, and I don’t think Republicans would either.”

Polis, who is term-limited, will leave office in January.

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