As Congress gets ready to rumble over tax reform this week, Colorado politicos on both side of equation have been sizing up the stakes.

They wonder if the Republicans American voters put in control of all three federal branches can demonstrate the ability to govern.

“We really need to get this done,” state Republican Party chairman Jeff Hays told CBS 4’s Sam Bush last week. “It’s going to have electoral consequences if we don’t.”

And by electoral consequences, he means losing elections. Partisans who vote for dreams have short attention spans and fickle voting histories in purple states such as Colorado.

Hays was talking about tax reform the day before Vice President Mike Pence came in Colorado to raise money for Republicans and reassure anxious state party officials that Republicans can pull a rabbit out their legislative hats on tax reform.

There are reasons for the GOP to be concerned about another loss. Donald Trump was elected president on a promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, and Republicans have been promising to repeal Obamacare for seven years. They failed to muster the GOP votes to do it.

Trump said he would crack down on immigration, and that’s been tied up in court, and there’s not much congressional momentum behind building that promised border wall, beyond drawing up some prototypes.

Trump isn’t turning up any heat to lock up Hillary Clinton, either, so there’s a lot riding on Republicans delivering on tax cuts, at least enough to fend off dissatisfied voters in its own party next year.

Scott Wasserman, president of the Denver-based Bell Policy Center think tank, brought the tax fight home to Colorado on Twitter Sunday.

“Don’t buy the line that we don’t need to pay for tax cuts,” tweeted the former deputy chief of staff to Gov. John Hickenlooper. “In 1999, Colorado permanently cut taxes & we’ve have been paying more ever since.

He tweeted on: “Despite a roaring economy today, we’ve got skyrocketing student debt; parents scrambling to cover care for their kids; crippling road congestion.

“It has made our state a patchwork of haves & have nots. Our rural communities especially struggle, unable to benefit from front range gains.”

If the left can make rhetorical gains against Republicans in the looming tax debate – on top of Trump’s immigration reform policies, healthcare costs and whatever scandald Trump might be embroiled in next year – that could trickle a long way down the ticket, Democrats hope.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that Republicans suffered a “bruising setback” on their chances of passing anything significant over the weekend, however, when the powerful National Association of Home Builders came out against it.

Ned Ryun of the conservative American Majority Project, which has a strong state presence, told Colorado Politics in June that national Republicans could overcome Trump’s bumpy start in the White House by making good on a signature piece of legislation or two before the mid-term election next year.

He named tax reform as a good opportunity.

“I will say this, if Donald Trump passes tax reform and cuts regulations on business, he’s going to be alright,” Ryun said nearly five months ago.

The president, might have a lot riding on cutting regulations after this week.

“I think it shows they don’t give a rip about how the policies impact Colorado families – they just need to deliver a ‘win’ to avoid the political consequences of failure,” Eric Walker, the spokesman for the state Democratic Party, said in an e-mail, after flagging Hays’ Channel 4 interview.