---
source_url: https://www.factcheck.org/2026/01/trump-waters-down-colorados-population-trend/
---

In criticizing Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and vetoing a bill that would fund a water project in the state, President Donald Trump has claimed that people are leaving the state “in droves,” but that’s not what the available data show.
Despite having [supported](https://perma.cc/F67B-LVRJ) the project during his first term, the president wrote in a [memo](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/12/congressional-bill-h-r-131-vetoed/) to [Congress](https://www.congress.gov/119/crec/2026/01/02/171/219/CREC-2026-01-02.pdf) that he [nixed the bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/131/all-actions?s=1&r=7) because it “would continue the failed policies of the past by forcing Federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs of a local water project.”
But he suggested in an interview with [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/31/trump-veto-colorado-water-jared-polis-00708585) that another contributing factor was his impression that the population of Colorado was declining. In social media posts criticizing Polis, Trump repeated the claim about people moving out of the state, once citing one moving company. Demographic data and figures from other moving companies contradict the claim.
This was one of only [two bills](https://www.congress.gov/advanced-search/legislation?congresses%5B0%5D=119&legislationNumbers=&restrictionType=field&restrictionFields%5B0%5D=allBillTitles&restrictionFields%5B1%5D=summary&summaryField=billSummary&enterTerms=&wordVariants=true&legislationTypes%5B0%5D=hr&legislationTypes%5B1%5D=hres&legislationTypes%5B2%5D=hjres&legislationTypes%5B3%5D=hconres&legislationTypes%5B4%5D=hamdt&legislationTypes%5B5%5D=s&legislationTypes%5B6%5D=sres&legislationTypes%5B7%5D=sjres&legislationTypes%5B8%5D=sconres&legislationTypes%5B9%5D=samdt&public=true&private=true&actionTerms=&legislativeActionWordVariants=true&actionDateBoxCount=2&actionText=&actionText2=&dateOfActionToggle=multi&legislativeAction=155&sponsorState=One&member=&sponsorTypes%5B0%5D=sponsor&sponsorTypeBool=OR&dateOfSponsorshipOperator=equal&dateOfSponsorshipStartDate=&dateOfSponsorshipEndDate=&dateOfSponsorshipIsOptions=yesterday&committeeActivity%5B0%5D=0&committeeActivity%5B1%5D=3&committeeActivity%5B2%5D=11&committeeActivity%5B3%5D=23&committeeActivity%5B4%5D=12&committeeActivity%5B5%5D=4&committeeActivity%5B6%5D=2&committeeActivity%5B7%5D=5&committeeActivity%5B8%5D=9&satellite=%5B%5D&search=&submitted=Submitted) the president vetoed during his first year of this term, and the legislation had passed the House and Senate by uncontroversial voice votes. Some [Colorado](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5670311-trump-pardon-tina-peters/) [political](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/31/boebert-trump-veto-political-retribution/) [insiders](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/us/politics/trump-veto-water-project-colorado.html) and [observers](https://coloradosun.com/2026/01/04/nicolais-trump-boebert-water-bill-cut-off/) have speculated that the veto was political retribution against Rep. Lauren Boebert — a Trump ally who represents a Colorado [district](https://perma.cc/4LEX-AUFE) affected by the [project](https://www.usbr.gov/gp/ecao/avc/img/avc_map.jpg) and who [diverged](https://www.cpr.org/2025/11/12/boebert-name-on-petition-demanding-epstein-files-released/) from the president when she demanded the release of files on [Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.factcheck.org/person/jeffrey-epstein/) — or against Polis — a Democrat who has [sparred](https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2025/12/15/trump-colorado-governor-polis-tina-peters) with Trump over the incarceration of Tina Peters, a former Mesa County clerk who was convicted of Colorado state charges of compromising election equipment to undermine the outcome of the 2020 election.
The House may vote [on Jan. 8](https://x.com/HouseDailyPress/status/2009331829946622198) on overriding the veto, which could be successful given the broad support for the bill. Update, Jan. 9: Although 35 Republicans [voted](https://www.congress.gov/votes/house/119-2/9) in favor of the bill, the House [vote](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/131/all-actions?s=1&r=7) to override the veto failed.
The project it would fund — called the [Arkansas Valley Conduit](https://www.usbr.gov/gp/ecao/avc/index.html) — would [pipe](https://secwcd.org/content/arkansas-valley-conduit) reservoir water for 130 miles to about 50,000 people in an [area](https://www.usbr.gov/gp/ecao/avc/index.html) that has naturally occurring radionuclides, including radium and uranium, in the groundwater. The AVC has a decades-long history as part of the extensive [Fryingpan-Arkansas Project](https://www.usbr.gov/projects/index.php?id=460) that brought water to users across the state after it was [approved](https://www.congress.gov/bill/87th-congress/house-bill/2206/text) in 1962.
The cost of the AVC project so far has been over [$500](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47987) [million](https://perma.cc/6CYG-87HK), and the total projected cost is $1.4 billion, [according to](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2224055101283086) an [estimate](https://perma.cc/W8R5-7AZT) based on 2023 prices from the Eastern Colorado Area Office of the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which is overseeing the project with the [Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District](https://secwcd.org/content/arkansas-valley-conduit). That total is roughly twice as much as the 2016 estimate, according to the bureau.
“Despite estimated project cost increases, the cost of the pipeline remains comparable to construction costs of similar pipelines currently under construction by Reclamation,” the [bureau](https://perma.cc/W8R5-7AZT) said on its website.
Colorado’s Population
On Dec. 31, two days after Trump vetoed the bill, he told [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/31/trump-veto-colorado-water-jared-polis-00708585), “They’re wasting a lot of money and people are leaving the state. They’re leaving the state in droves. Bad governor.” He also [posted](https://perma.cc/FJ4P-QBF8) on his social media platform, Truth Social, “California and Colorado are two of the TOP OUTBOUND STATES IN 2025 (United Van Lines!) – In other words, PEOPLE LEAVING!!!” Later the same day, he [said](https://perma.cc/S8AY-J7EJ) in a post that “people are leaving in record numbers.”
We asked the White House for clarification on the president’s reasoning for vetoing the bill and for evidence to support the claim that people are leaving Colorado “in droves.” We were directed to the president’s official explanation to Congress and got no response to the question about population shifts.
Based on Trump’s social media post, it appears that the claim comes from the annual [roundup](https://www.unitedvanlines.com/newsroom/2025-national-movers-study) provided by the moving company United Van Lines. It [reported](https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/2025-Inbound-Outbound-State-Rankings.pdf) making a total of 6,633 moves into and out of Colorado in 2025 — 2,986 were for people moving into the state and 3,647 were for people moving out of the state. That put Colorado — with 55% of its moving traffic leaving the state — among the “top outbound states for 2025.”
According to the [report](https://www.unitedvanlines.com/newsroom/2025-national-movers-study), the largest portion of those who left — about 31% — did so because of family obligations, and the second largest — about 23% — did so for a job.
But that’s not the only moving company that operates in Colorado, and, as NBC’s Denver affiliate, 9NEWS, [noted](https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/trump-offers-questionable-reason-for-colorado-water-project-veto/73-6956361f-2cda-4394-b295-d090a471925d), several other moving companies — including [U-Haul](https://www.uhaul.com/About/Migration/), [Atlas Van Lines,](https://www.atlasvanlines.com/resources/migration-patterns) [North American Moving Services](https://www.northamerican.com/migration-map) and [Allied Van Lines](https://www.allied.com/migration-map) — reported either a slight influx, a slight outflow or neutral moving trends for the state in 2025.
Because Trump suggested that people are leaving Colorado “in droves” due to a “bad governor,” it’s also worth noting that Census data published by the website USAFacts [show](https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/our-changing-population/state/colorado/) that since Polis [took office](https://www.nga.org/governor/jared-polis/) in 2019, the moderate upward trend in the state’s population over the last decade has continued, although the data is only through 2022.
Similarly, [data](https://perma.cc/7ZFA-E6DU) from the State Demography Office show comparable estimates and projections through 2025. The office estimated Colorado’s population was 5.7 million in 2019 and projected the figure grew to nearly 6 million for 2025.
We reached out to the office for more details, but didn’t receive a response. In July, however, Colorado State Demographer Kate Watkins told 9NEWS that “Colorado has, and is projected to continue to, grow faster than the rest of the United States.”
Political Retribution?
The president [posted](https://perma.cc/S8AY-J7EJ) more about Polis on Dec. 31, writing in the afternoon on Truth Social: “God Bless Tina Peters, who is now, for two years out of nine, sitting in a Colorado Maximum Security Prison, at the age of 73, and sick, for the ‘crime’ of trying to stop the massive voter fraud that goes on in her State (where people are leaving in record numbers!).” He called Polis a “Scumbag” and the Republican district attorney who prosecuted Peters “disgusting,” adding, “May they rot in Hell. FREE TINA PETERS!”
Peters, who [took](https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/tina-peters-wins-clerks-spot-defeats-office-veteran/article_bf9bc82c-79c9-11e8-9cb6-10604b9f6eda.html) [office](https://perma.cc/EAV8-8SU9) as the Mesa County clerk and recorder in 2019, was [convicted](https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/newsRoom/pressReleases/2024/PR20241003Peters.html) in state court in 2024 of several charges related to breaking into county election equipment in an attempt to prove that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election, despite the fact that former President Joe Biden [won](https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2020.pdf) both the electoral college and the popular vote — garnering 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million, nationally, and winning Colorado with about 55% of that state’s vote compared to Trump’s 42%.
She is [serving](https://perma.cc/X4N5-F6DS) a nine-year sentence in [state custody](https://cdoc.colorado.gov/facilities/pueblo-campus/la-vista-correctional-facility).
On Dec. 11, Trump [announced](https://perma.cc/DSU7-NLKS) on Truth Social that he would grant her a “full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!”
He also [signed](https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1420756/dl?inline) an executive grant of clemency that is dated Dec. 5.
But the president’s [pardon power](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013316/) extends only to federal charges. Peters was convicted of state charges.
“No President has jurisdiction over state law nor the power to pardon a person for state convictions,” Polis [said](https://x.com/GovofCO/status/1999300023415382527) on Dec. 11 on X. “This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will abide by court orders.”
State leaders have [suggested](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/us/politics/trump-veto-water-project-colorado.html) that the veto may be political retribution.
Boebert has also [suggested](https://x.com/KyleClark/status/2006172149602537591) that the president’s move may have been a [reprisal](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/31/lauren-boebert-trump-colorado) for her [support](https://www.congress.gov/votes/house/119-1/289) of the [Epstein Files Transparency Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4405), which Trump had referred to as a “[hoax](https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-fifa-task-force-white-house-november-17-2025/#163)” and [sought](https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-air-force-one-november-14-2025/#129) to [discourage](https://www.axios.com/2025/11/12/epstein-files-trump-massie-discharge-petition-boebert-mace) her from backing.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through [our “Donate” page](https://giving.aws.cloud.upenn.edu/?fastStart=simpleForm&program=ANS&fund=602014). If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102.