Colorado Voters Trade Principle for Power on 2028 Gerrymander

A $14 million project. Twelve units.

No, wait, that’s the housing story. Let’s look at the Maine Senate race. Or rather, let’s look at the Colorado parallel Mike Littwin is drawing. The striking number isn’t a dollar amount; it’s a single letter: C. For Collins.

Littwin admits he’s a hypocrite. He supports Graham Platner, the Maine senatorial candidate mired in #MeToo controversies and a Nazi-adjacent tattoo, not because Platner is perfect, but because he’s the only thing standing between Susan Collins and a Democratic hold. It’s not about virtue. It’s about survival. And Littwin argues we’re facing the exact same pragmatic squeeze here in Colorado with the 2028 gerrymander on the ballot.

Let’s do the math.

We oppose gerrymandering. We always have. We voted for commission-drawn districts because we wanted fairness. We wanted the mapmakers to be neutral, not politicians. But Trump started the gerrymander wars. The Supreme Court blessed them. Now, Democrats are looking at a map that favors their party in 2028, and they have no option but to embrace the hypocrisy.

It’s either a vote to counter Trump’s malevolent strategy or a vote to allow him to continue his rout of democracy.

On paper, this feels dirty. In practice, it’s just politics. Littwin points out that Platner is a work in progress. He admits to alcohol problems. He admits to lying about the tattoo’s meaning. The only woman accusing him of physical assault is a Republican operative he dated a decade ago. Is that ideal? No. But is it better than Collins? The polls say yes.

We don’t have a vote in Maine’s primary right now. It’s a foregone conclusion that Platner will win, running basically unopposed. But we have a vote in Colorado this November. We have to decide if we’re willing to swallow the pill of a gerrymandered map to keep the Senate in play.

Littwin writes, “I didn’t have a vote, of course. Neither did you. But that doesn’t mean that those of us who care about saving American democracy don’t have a say.”

Here’s the blunt truth: We’re trading principle for power. We’re accepting a flawed candidate or a flawed map because the alternative is worse. It’s not a victory lap. It’s a triage decision.

For context, consider how this hits home. If we vote for the gerrymander, we lock in Democratic advantage for the next decade. That means more control over federal funding, greater authority over regulatory frameworks, and increased influence over who sits in the Senate chair when the midterms hit. But we also admit that our system of "fair" districts is broken. We admit that good-government ideals are temporary luxuries we can’t afford right now.

The cost isn’t just in dollars. It’s in credibility. It’s in the knowledge that we’ll look back at this period and see politicians who claimed to want clean maps but chose power instead.

Littwin concludes that if more scandals hit Platner, he might resign. Maybe. But we can’t bank on it. We have to act now. The stakes are that high. It’s not about who is the best human being. It’s about who stops the other guy.

In Colorado, that means looking at a ballot measure that might seem like a minor administrative tweak and realizing it’s actually a bet on the next decade of our political landscape. We’re not voting for perfection. We’re voting for leverage.

And leverage is expensive.