The group behind Amendment 87, which would create a progressive income tax in Colorado, says the ballot measure garnered enough votes to pass. They announced the presumptive victory at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
Amendment 87 would amend the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, and create a new progressive income tax. The move would lower the rate for less-wealthy Coloradans and increase it for wealthier ones.
As of 12:30 p.m. Thursday, votes in favor of the tiered system were ahead of those against it by 27,452 votes and just over 1 percentage point. The measure requires a simple majority to pass.
Here are the latest results (numbers are updated automatically):
Tuesday evening, supporters of Amendment 87 gathered and awaited the results. State Rep. Lorena Garcia said she was disappointed that Gov.-elect Phil Weiser came out against the measure.
John Daley/CPR News
“Honestly, when he came out against 87, as someone who sits on the finances, as someone who watches the budget closely, as a state legislator who has to look people in the face when we make these cuts, it really concerned me that he doesn’t really understand what he’s getting into,” Garcia said.
Outgoing Gov. Jared Polis also spoke out against the measure during an interview with Colorado Matters on Wednesday.
“I agree with what he’s doing with individual taxes,” he said. “What I’ve been talking about is what this does and the doubling of the rate for small and medium-sized businesses. It will cause massive unemployment here. It will drive businesses out of Colorado. That concerns me greatly.”
Chris deGruy Kennedy is president and CEO of the Bell Policy Center as well as a former Democratic lawmaker and co-chair of Protect Colorado’s Future, the coalition behind Amendment 87. He was optimistic about Amendment 87’s passage.
“I think the message is that voters made a choice to make a huge change in the direction of our state, investing in regular workers, the idea that our economy is run by hard-working people, as opposed to billionaires and giant corporations at the top,” he said. “And as a result, we will have a fairer tax code in the state, ordinary people will get a tax cut, and then we will see a huge new investment in K-12 education, health care and child care that will pay huge dividends for ordinary workers and seniors.”
How we got here
Colorado’s 2026 elections have been marked by heavy fights, including the race for the 8th Congressional District, one of the most dynamic elections in the United States, which could help decide which party controls the House of Representatives.
But the fight over Amendment 87, which would create a graduated income tax, was right there.
There was everything.
It was this 196-word question that triggered a thousand mailings, social media ads and TV spots, an incalculable and considerable expenditure by dark money groups, not to mention its own tax calculator.
It was this ballot measure that gave rise to another rival measure, Proposition 136, which would cap the income tax rate at 4.4 percent.
It was this feud that exposed a yawning divide between Democrats.
Polis and former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar spoke against the proposal, saying it would be bad for the state’s economy. Progressive state lawmakers and a coalition of like-minded groups have said it would enact a much fairer income tax, while raising a few billion dollars a year for health care and schools when the state budget is in dire straits.
They gathered more than 124,000 signatures to put it on the ballot.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The signatures and their gathering sparked a courtroom clash that brought into play the actions of Democratic Secretary of State and attorney general candidate Jena Griswold’s office.
An opponent of the ballot proposition filed a lawsuit, claiming that supporters of Amendment 87 failed to properly follow the rules for collecting signatures — and that the secretary of state’s office should have voided the signatures collected by those paid collectors, which would have voided the proposal.
A district court judge rejected the challenge Oct. 21, siding with income tax supporters, ruling that state law does not allow the elections office to prevent a proposition from going to the ballot because of registration problems with the agents who collect signatures.
By that time, thousands of Coloradans had already voted.
The next day, plaintiff’s attorneys from the Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck firm in Denver appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case on October 23.
He took the case and then issued a ruling five days before Election Day, which allowed Amendment 87 to survive.
Amendment 87 would amend the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, to establish a new progressive income tax. This would lower the rate for less wealthy Coloradans and increase it for wealthier ones.
The dividing line between households and businesses that would see their tax bill increase and those that would see their tax bill decrease is about $500,000 per year. Some estimates put this limit as high as $1 million per year, depending on the business or household.
If passed, the initiative is expected to bring in $2.7 billion annually to the state.
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