Colorado’s legislature used to be a place where neither party was dominant. Dozens of seats were competitive and House and Senate majorities switched regularly. From 2010 to 2020, the House was predominantly Democratic with one two-year assembly under Republicans. The Senate had two assemblies from 2015 to 2018 under Republicans.

John Hickenlooper was governor and state Senate President John Morse from El Paso County and Sen. Angela Giron from Pueblo were recalled because of their votes on Second Amendment bills. Some courage there. But during this decade, Colorado moved from purple to blue. By 2018, Democrats won both chambers along with all statewide elected positions. That has held since then.

What remains of political party competition resides in just a couple of places. El Paso County and Pueblo County have one close race each, showing how these communities, GOP bastion and Dem bastions, are changing. The quintessential competitive districts containing long-standing points of conflict between Democrats and Republicans reside along the north Front Range: House Districts 19, 50 and 51 in Longmont, Greeley and Loveland.

These formerly agricultural areas have grown rapidly in population with farms turning into suburban homes feeding workplaces in Denver, Boulder, Greeley and Fort Collins. Deep under that land, stuck in Cretaceous-era sedimentary rocks, mostly sandstone, are the carbon-based energy sources of crude oil and natural gas.

This territory represents the Wattenberg-Niobrara oil-and-gas range. The area also funnels decreasing water to agriculture, oil-and-gas fracking, cities and Nebraska. The deleterious effects of energy drilling used to be generally accepted. Now, local populations are resisting as the Front Range’s ozone levels go higher and risks from unplugged orphan wells and oil-and-gas drilling leaks threaten health.

There’s the heat and fire smoke as a result of all that carbon energy development. There are problems with school funding and resource allocation between public and charter schools along with possible Polis-supported voucher depletions. Severance taxes for county and school funding add financial dependencies for county operations and public school resources.

House District 19 is smack-dab in the middle of these issues. The district sits in one of the most controversial portions of the state’s oil-and-gas industry. Erie residents are upset about SM Energy’s Draco project permitted by the state’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission. They worry about health effects from drilling operations.

Mineral rights are also at stake as Erie owns rights in the Draco drilling area. Town leaders negotiated a deal with SM Energy to bring mineral rights revenue to the municipality but residents now object. Some citizens assert the town is getting ripped off. Dan Woog is the current Republican House representative. Jillaire McMillan is his opponent in a rematch. He won his seat by 110 votes in 2024. The two have yet to publicly confront the Erie debates.

Woog strongly supports oil-and-gas drilling. He advocated in 2020 for county control of oil-and-gas drilling decisions rather than for local municipal control. This position affects Erie’s position in the hierarchy of drilling permit decision-making. McMillan, the rematch opponent, generally prioritizes the environment as related to climate change. But she’s also concerned about oil-and-gas workers and their jobs. She’s attempting a difficult balancing maneuver. These controversies set up a defining straddle for both candidates.

Though the Erie drilling and mineral rights conflict is paramount now, water, air quality and affordable housing concern both HD19 candidates. Woog, following the GOP standard, would preserve current water-right policies. McMillan offers water conservation in agriculture as one of her key objectives. Woog is a strong advocate for TABOR. McMillan wants a stable funding source for school finance.

House Districts 50 and 51 share many of the same issues as House District 19, but with different emphasis. House District 50, pitting Republican incumbent Ryan Gonzalez against former City Councilman Tommy Butler, sits in Greeley, the middle of an agriculture-growing, city oil-and-gas-development, water-resources geography. Critical problems are housing affordability, water accessibility, roads and transportation, land development and taxes. Gonzalez squeaked out a 500-plus vote victory in 2024.

House District 51 in Loveland is an open seat. Republican Amy Parks was close friends with Hugh McKean, the well-liked House minority leader who died in office. She’s competing against Jacki Marsh, the former mayor of Loveland, the principal locality in the district. No surprise, but housing, cost of living, water allocations, roads and transportation, land development, school finance and taxes are critical concerns.

These districts share similar attractions and challenges. The two incumbents won their offices by a hair’s breadth. The seats are at the intersection of every political argument in Colorado. Each issue demands a choice. Will we continue oil-and-gas development for jobs and revenue, or will we stop drilling to prevent degradation of health and the environment? Will water rights continue as they are or will they have to change as resources decline? Will we be able to balance water use for agriculture with water use for cities? Will we budge on taxes to support public schools and transportation or continue TABOR and cut taxes?

The outcomes of the contests in these three districts may finally answer these questions.

Paula Noonan owns CapitolCommons.ai, the state’s premier legislature-tracking platform.