What is Gov. Jared Polis thinking?

As President Donald Trump tries to bully Colorado into releasing convicted and imprisoned Tina Peters to federal custody, a silent Polis appears to have dived under his desk.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has formally asked the Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) to release Peters, the former Mesa County Clerk, from the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo where she is serving eight years and nine months after being convicted in October 2024 on seven counts for election fraud and misconduct.

Peters was indicted by a grand jury empaneled in deep red Republican Mesa County. She was prosecuted by a Republican district attorney and convicted by a jury from that same Republican county.

Trump has repeatedly called for the state of Colorado to release Peters claiming she was only trying to reveal election fraud that resulted in the 2020 election being stolen from him. Trump has threatened Colorado with “severe consequences” if she is not released.  

Trump even cited Colorado’s all-mail ballot process, which he claims is corrupt, as one of the reasons he is moving the U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

The Colorado County Clerks Association strongly opposes the release of Peters and has repeatedly called on Polis to clearly reject Trump’s efforts. Thus far, Polis has ignored the clerks and refuses to take a position.

The DOC — which Polis allegedly runs as governor — issued a pathetically worded statement last week saying it is “not currently seeking any transfer” of Peters to federal custody. You could drive a truck through that open door.

There are 63 elected county clerks in the state with 41 Republicans, 16 Democrats and six unaffiliated. Though Republicans dominate county clerk offices across the state, the large metro counties of Denver, Jefferson, Arapahoe, Boulder, and Adams all have Democratic clerks.  

Boulder County Clerk Molly Fitzpatrick, a Democrat, called Polis’s silence “deafening and offensive.”

Should Peters be released to federal custody, it is not beyond the realm of imagination that Peters would soon be put back on the street by Trump to promote her crackpot conspiracy theories of dark entities in Serbia and China infiltrating election equipment and stealing elections.

Colorado Republicans have been annihilated since Trump lost Colorado in three consecutive presidential elections. He lost to Hillary Clinton by 4 points in 2016, to Joe Biden by 14 points in 2020, and by 11 points to Kamala Harris in 2024. Colorado Republicans lost every statewide race during the 2018 and 2022 mid-term elections when Trump’s approval was in the mid-30s and his disapproval was in the high-50s in the state.

Perhaps Polis has decided to cave in to Trump’s demands knowing there will be a huge public outcry that will hurt Republican candidates in 2026 when elections for governor, U.S. senator, attorney general, state treasurer, and secretary of state along with congressional and state legislative elections will be held.

Recent polling shows Democrats are unpopular with Colorado voters, with Polis and U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper all underwater in their approval/disapproval ratings. Meanwhile, a clear majority of voters say Colorado is on “the wrong track” under total Democratic control.

But as long as Colorado Republicans are defined by stolen election conspiracy theories as promulgated by Trump, Peters and a host of other Republican leaders, unaffiliated voters who make up half of Colorado’s electorate will be repelled from voting for Republicans despite their frustration with total Democratic control.

Meanwhile, to make matters worse, those same unaffiliated voters are under assault by the Colorado Republican Party which is seeking to steal their right to vote in party primaries.

As of Friday morning, Nov. 28, when this column was written, Polis remained silent. He continues to leave the county clerks high and dry.  And vulnerable.

Polis believes he is always the smartest guy in the room, and maybe he is — as he deftly concedes to the release of Tina Peters from her Colorado imprisonment to tarnish Republican candidates in 2026.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who managed campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.  He was campaign manager for U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota in 2004 when Thune unseated Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.