Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis faced harsh criticism from opponents after a CNN appearance where Polis sought to distinguish his brand of politics from Democratic Socialists like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who are staking a claim on the Democratic Party’s future.
Polis called himself a Progressive who wants universal health care, while emphasizing his conviction that a robust capitalist market economy is essential in providing entitlements for citizens. Saying “socialism is a road to nowhere,” Polis aimed not just at Democrats but also at President Trump, characterizing the federal government’s investments in private companies like Intel — essentially nationalizing portions of them — as socialism in action. “It’s what Trump has been doing,” Polis said.
Polis: Socialism is a ticket to nowhere. It’s what Trump has been doing. I’m a Democrat, I’m a Progressive. I want universal health care. I want a strong social safety net. The only way to do that is to have the prosperity that a capitalist economy creates pic.twitter.com/SZei6sKCBH
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
Many on the left agree with that criticism, saying — as Polis does — that a government can’t legitimately execute its regulatory role while also owning the companies it regulates. But those same voices contend Polis surrendered his integrity, and with it his authority, earlier this year when he bowed to a Trump pressure campaign and released convicted election fraudster Tina Peters from prison, essentially undoing the verdict of a jury that sent Peters to prison for election meddling on Trump’s behalf.
Independent journalist and former MSNBC star Mehdi Hasan was brutal in his excoriation of Polis, writing: “You released from prison election denier and interferer Tina Peters, overruling your own Executive Clemency Advisory Board and then firing two members who spoke out against you. Peters ran straight to Trump and Bannon and has shown no remorse. So you lost any credibility you may have had to lecture anyone on anything.”
Whatever alignment Hasan and Polis have on issues like federal ownership of private sector companies, it is not enough to bridge the divide Polis carved out when he commuted Peters’s sentence.
[NOTE: Peters was convicted in 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and other crimes in a Colorado court, not a federal court, so was ineligible for a Trump pardon. She was sentenced to nine years in prison. Only Polis had the power to release her.]
Progressive influencer LuxeProgressive questioned Polis’s characterization of himself as a Democrat and Progressive, writing: “He’s neither – he let an election rigger out of jail.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told Politico that he remains “concerned about her conduct upon returning to Mesa County given her lack of remorse for her crimes. I will continue to fight Tina Peters’ efforts to overturn her conviction in the courts. The safety of our elections and the rule of law require it.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a June statement that “the Governor’s grant of clemency to Tina Peters is an affront to our democracy, the people of Colorado, and election officials across the country. It sends a dangerous message about accountability for those who would attack elections. Peters’ release also will embolden the election denial movement; since the grant of clemency, she has continued to spread election falsehoods and conspiracies.”
Polis, writing in a newly established Substack on May 31, attempted to explain his decision to commute Peters’s sentence, and his reasoning only further infuriated opponents of the decision, which came after an appeals court upheld her sentence in April. Polis essentially said everything was correct about the Peters conviction, and that she was guilty as charged, but that — in his opinion — her sentence was “simply too long.” This, critics said, was not his decision to make, as the judicial branch had rendered a different decision — twice.
Polis wrote:
“Earlier this month, I granted clemency to Tina Peters, reducing her sentence from 8¾ years to 4⅜ years, with a corresponding parole date of June 1, 2026. The reaction, positive and negative, was immediate and intense.
The legal question regarding her unusually long sentence was straightforward, the public reaction was not.
Not because Tina Peters is innocent. She isn’t.
Not because I agree with her claims about elections. I don’t.
And certainly not because I ever considered pardoning her. I never did.
It was a straightforward decision because, after reviewing the facts, and reading the Appeals Court decision, I concluded that her sentence was simply too long.”
But Polis’s decision is unpopular with nearly every Democrat who weighed in. Asserting that “Tina Peters is guilty as sin and a disgrace to Colorado,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) wrote, “she tried to undermine Colorado’s free and fair election system. When she was caught red-handed, she was prosecuted by a Republican district attorney and rightfully convicted by a jury of her peers…I strongly disagree with this decision.”
In Polis’s explanation, he wrote of Peters after her release that “she may continue making claims about elections that I believe are false. She may continue promoting ideas that I strongly disagree with. I hope she doesn’t.”
That hope was characterized as either naive or insincere by his critics, and it has not been fulfilled. Peters met with Trump in the White House weeks after her release and appeared, as Hasan said, on Steve Bannon’s podcast where she said, “I know that the Democrats are going to cheat, and no one’s really addressing the problem that I spent my time in prison as retribution for, and that was exposing the election machines that allow the votes to be flipped.”
[NOTE: MAGA has sought to take advantage of the backlash against Polis and use it against Democrats, portraying their anger with the Governor as a symbol of an alleged leftward shift in the party. “The censure of Governor Polis shows just how radical the left has truly become,” wrote an X account associated with Peters. The same account quoted Peters saying “I thank Governor Polis for being willing to stand up in the middle of this persecution and do what he believed was right.”]