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Engage Colorado — Issue 25 — July 7, 2026
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This newsletter has been published by Engage Colorado.
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Colorado Is No Longer Winning. The Data Says So.
This Engage Colorado Newsletter reflects the personal opinions of Dan Caruso, written with the support of the Caruso Ventures team. The Ensuring Colorado's Innovation Future Coalition did not review and has not endorsed this Engage Colorado Newsletter.
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This newsletter continues the section-by-section walk through The Innovation Vision for Colorado. This issue focuses on the data that validates the claim that Colorado is on a negative trajectory. In follow-up newsletters, we will cover what is driving these outcomes.
As with the broader Innovation Vision and The Honest Assessment, I led the preparation of this section. It has not been formally reviewed nor endorsed by the full coalition that signed The Open Letter. Every figure below is sourced in The Honest Assessment.
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Colorado is no longer winning
Ours was a leading state for attracting capital, talent, and businesses. It was a Destination Geography. And all the people of Colorado have benefited from this.
But now we are not. We have drifted to become a Departure Geography, where capital, talent, and businesses are choosing to avoid Colorado. This drift took a turn for the worse in last week's Democratic Primary. The slide downward robs all of Colorado of the benefits of a vibrant economy.
Last week, I congratulated Phil Weiser for his victory and expressed hope that he will prove me wrong by leading Colorado's recovery to once again be a leading hub for investment and innovation.
An important initial step is admitting we have a problem. Below is the data that validates that Colorado is indeed on a negative trajectory.
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The companies are leaving — at an accelerating pace
98 companies have relocated from Colorado or canceled planned expansions since 2019 — eliminating more than 13,600 known jobs. The annual rate has more than quadrupled: 6 in 2022, 11 in 2023, 22 in 2024, and a record 27 in 2025. Top destinations: Texas, California, Arizona, North Carolina, Florida.
The highest-profile departure: Palantir moved its headquarters from Denver to Miami in February 2026, taking 724 jobs and roughly $106 million in annual GDP with it. Palantir cited Colorado's AI regulation as “onerous and costly” in its own securities filings.
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The jobs and establishments are following
Colorado lost 11,700 non-farm jobs in 2025 — the worst year since the pandemic, concentrated in professional services, information, and financial activities — the sectors that overlap most directly with the innovation economy.
Federal BLS Business Employment Dynamics data: Colorado lost a net 3,934 business establishments in 2024 — ranking 48th nationally per capita, and last in the country for jobs lost per capita. Colorado is one of only six states with declines in both establishments and employment in 2024 — clustering with Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Washington. It is not a cluster Colorado has historically belonged to.
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The people are following
Net domestic migration turned negative in 2025 for the first time since 2004 — 12,100 more residents left the state than arrived.
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The business leaders see it and are acting on it
Three independent surveys have converged on the same conclusion:
Colorado Chamber 2025 Business Leader Survey: 67% believe the state is headed in the wrong direction (up from 53% in 2022); 71% describe Colorado's regulatory and political climate as more costly or burdensome than three years ago.
CU Leeds School Q2 2026 Business Confidence Index (213 leaders): 52.9% expect a negative state-economic outlook against just 18.2% positive.
Colorado Business Roundtable Spring 2026 Executive Outlook Survey (52 senior executives at the state's largest employers): 81% say state policy is negatively impacting their business — up from 65% just six months earlier — and only 2% report a positive impact.
The forward-looking behavior matches the sentiment: 45% of Colorado businesses now plan to invest out of state, and only 29% plan to grow their Colorado workforce — down from 48% in 2022.
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The cost of living is now a national outlier
The 2025 CNBC America's Top States for Business report graded Colorado F on cost of living — 47th nationally — and D+ on cost of doing business. Denver's cost of living now runs 13.5% above the national average; Boulder's runs 41% above. Housing in the Destination Geographies where capital is fleeing to runs 40–60% lower.
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The regulatory load is compounding
SB24-205 alone — Colorado's 2024 AI regulation, the first comprehensive state-level AI law in the country — is projected by the Common Sense Institute to cost Colorado up to 30,359 tech-sector jobs and $5.5 billion in GDP by 2030. When deployer compliance costs across six regulated industries are factored in, that grows to +40,000 jobs and +$4 billion in GDP.
The FAMLI Act's 0.88% payroll premium for mandatory paid leave has been opted out of by 86% of Colorado's local governments — a rare signal from within the public sector itself that the mandate is viewed as burdensome.
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Downtown Denver — the visible signal
Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate reached 38.9% in Q1 2026 — an all-time high, and, according to the Wall Street Journal, the highest of any of the country's top 50 cities. More than 5 million square feet of downtown office space is now classified as “distressed.” In parts of Upper Downtown, vacancy runs as high as 46.4%. Asking rents are the lowest among peer metros. Whatever the causes, the picture Coloradans and out-of-state visitors see when they walk downtown is now itself a headwind to attracting talent and capital.
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Even the national press has picked up on it
This has long been understood by the people who decide where to locate companies, deploy capital, and grow companies. What has changed is that the national press now sees it too.
Wall Street Journal — “Entrepreneurs Flocked to Colorado, Now Red Tape Is Driving Some Away”: documenting the 98-company relocation figure, Palantir's Miami move, and Colorado's AI law.
Wall Street Journal (Peter Grant, May 27, 2026) — “Can This Guy Get People to Live in America's Emptiest Downtown?”: profiling a developer buying downtown Denver office towers at fractions of their pre-pandemic values (one 785,000-square-foot building for 97% below its 2013 price) and framing Denver as “the emptiest downtown” in America, with the highest office vacancy of any of the country's top 50 cities.
New York Times “On Politics” (Reid J. Epstein) — “Will left-wing energy keep rising in Colorado?”: published the eve of last week's primary, placing Colorado in the same left-wing insurgency narrative as New York City's socialism movement.
The country's two most influential business and political outlets — the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times — now see what has mobilized Colorado's founders, investors, and executives. If investment avoids Colorado, all Coloradans will be negatively impacted.
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If we work together, we can reverse this trend
If Colorado takes the appropriate steps, Colorado can be the most attractive innovation ecosystem in the world — and every Coloradan will share in the economic and cultural prosperity that leadership creates. This is the Innovation Vision for Colorado.
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