Engage Colorado — Where the Divide Is Sharpest

Newsletter — Issue 27 — July 14, 2026

This newsletter has been published by Engage Colorado.

The Drivers Series — Category 2 · Factor 2a

Where the Divide Is Sharpest: Political Rhetoric Toward Business

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.

This is the first newsletter in the “drivers” series I previewed in the last issue. It walks through the first factor of Category 2 — Political Rhetoric Toward Business — from The Honest Assessment. Follow-up issues will cover the remaining Category 2 factors.

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.

A Quick Recap of Where We Have Been

For readers who have joined recently or missed a prior issue, here is the arc this series has traveled:

This newsletter begins that walk. It examines Category 2 — The Business and Political Climate, which is where the gap between the states winning the competition for capital and the states losing it is at its sharpest.

The Gap That Is Not Narrowing

Category 2 of The Honest Assessment covers three factors: political rhetoric toward business, state–federal friction, and state investment in economic development.

The scoring gap is wider here than in any other category of the framework.

Scores are out of 5  ·  current → trajectory

Colorado's Category 2 score is 1.9 current / 1.4 trajectory — essentially indistinguishable from the Departure Geographies (1.8 / 1.4), and nowhere near the Destinations (4.2 / 4.3). Unless this changes, Colorado will continue on the trajectory of driving talent and capital to Texas, Florida, and other Destination Geographies.

Factor 2a

Political Rhetoric Toward Business

This is where the divide is sharpest and most consequential.

In Departure Geographies, elected officials publicly frame employers as problems to be constrained rather than partners to be cultivated. Language like “corporate greed,” “bad actors,” and “algorithmic discrimination” reflects a governing philosophy reinforced by activist constituencies that reward divisiveness and confrontation.

The signal reaches beyond direct business regulation. Resistance to voter identification requirements and permissive immigration enforcement register with founders and investors as signals about governance priorities — and among some, as mechanisms designed to preserve the electoral base that sustains the broader anti-business policy environment. Whether that reading is fair or complete matters less than its effect: it reinforces a perception in a meaningful segment of the business community that these states are structurally unlikely to become more business-friendly. Whether each specific example fully applies to Colorado today is beside the point — the pattern is what founders and investors are reading.

Colorado is now producing the same signal. The Colorado Chamber's 2025 survey found that 71% of business leaders described the state's regulatory and political climate as more costly or burdensome than three years ago — and the Chamber's own tracking shows 98 companies have relocated from Colorado since 2019, eliminating at least 13,600 jobs.

In Destination Geographies, the posture is reversed. Governors and economic development officials actively court business investment, make personal calls to founders and CEOs, and treat company recruitment as a core function of state government. Pro-business rhetoric is not just tolerated — it is bipartisan, institutionally supported, and electorally rewarded.

The signal compounds over time. A state that has welcomed business for a decade sends a fundamentally different message than one where a single pro-business governor is swimming against a hostile legislature. Founders and investors are not listening for perfection. They are listening for whether a state's political culture views their presence as an asset — or as something to be regulated, taxed, and publicly criticized.

The evidence in the losing states is now impossible to ignore:

The states that have made business feel unwelcome are discovering that the damage is easier to inflict than to reverse.

What This Means for Colorado — On Political Rhetoric

Colorado's 2a score — 2.2 current / 1.8 trajectory — is better than the Departure average (1.8 / 1.5). Colorado has not yet reached the entrenched adversarial posture of:

But the direction of travel is clear. The Chamber's data is the closest thing to a smoke alarm: 71% of business leaders saying Colorado's regulatory and political climate is more costly or burdensome than three years ago. 98 companies gone since 2019. A record 27 relocations in 2025 alone.

The rhetoric is part of that. When Colorado's elected leadership frames business as a source of harm rather than as a partner — even in service of legitimate policy objectives — the signal reaches every founder, investor, and executive weighing where to go next. And once that signal becomes durable, reversing it takes years.

Reversing this trend on rhetoric requires Colorado's elected officials to lead the charge. Our Governor, Senators, Attorney General, legislative leadership of both parties, mayors of all cities, and commissioners of all counties must publicly and consistently articulate that Colorado understands the vital role that tech and other businesses play in creating a vibrant ecosystem that benefits all Coloradans. And they must express a commitment to creating an environment in which innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors will once again feel comfortable investing in Colorado.

What Comes Next

The next newsletter will cover the other two factors of Category 2:

2a is about how a state talks about business. 2b and 2c are about what it does.

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.

Go Deeper

— Dan Caruso, Engage Colorado

Managing Director of Caruso Ventures, Host of The Bear Roars Podcast, and Board Chair of Boulder Roots Music Fest