President Donald Trump says Coloradans are leaving “in droves” as he vetoes a major water project, but census data, state demographers, and multiple moving-company reports complicate that claim — and fuel speculation of political retribution.
President Donald Trump’s decision to veto a bipartisan water infrastructure bill for Colorado has ignited a political and factual dispute over one of the state’s most sensitive metrics: population growth.
In vetoing legislation that would have funded the Arkansas Valley Conduit (AVC) — a long-planned project designed to deliver clean drinking water to southeastern Colorado — Trump argued that the bill would “force Federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs of a local water project.” But in public comments and social media posts, the president added a second justification: his assertion that people are leaving Colorado “in droves.”
Available data tell a more nuanced story.
