Julie Gonzales
Democratic Party
How does your experience make you qualified to represent the people?
I've spent 20 years organizing alongside tenants facing eviction, teachers fighting for their classrooms, immigrants targeted by ICE, and workers trying to make ends meet. That organizing didn't stop when I got to the State Senate; it became the foundation for how I govern. I led Colorado's Reproductive Health Equity Act before the Supreme Court overturned Roe. I passed the Colorado Voting Rights Act. I took on the corporate rent-fixing algorithms driving up the cost of housing for Colorado families. I repealed the death penalty and passed Colorado's first cap on prescription drug prices. I know how to win fights that matter for working families. I'm not running for the Senate to be a bystander. I'm running because I know how to organize, how to legislate, and how to turn values into real results for working people.
What are your top policy priorities?
Three things keep me up at night, and they're the same three things Colorado families are dealing with every day.
First, the cost of living. Families are choosing between rent and insulin. We need to ban the rent-fixing algorithms that are gouging tenants, build housing we can actually afford, take on hospital and pharma price-gouging, and pass Medicare for All, because no one in the wealthiest country in the history of the world should go bankrupt because they got sick.
Second, protecting our freedoms. That means defending reproductive freedom and making sure every Coloradan can walk down the street without fear or discrimination from ICE. Freedom isn't just a ballot, it's the power to make decisions about your own body, your own future, without politicians or CEOs in the way.
Third, an economy that actually works for working people. That means the PRO Act, real antitrust enforcement, breaking up corporate monopolies, and ending the tax giveaways that let corporations extract wealth from our communities while executives cash out. Working people built this state. It's time our government worked for us.
What is one issue you think is being overlooked in this race, and how would you address it?
Housing. This is the defining economic crisis of our generation, and it doesn't get the attention it deserves. In Denver, evictions have hit all-time highs. The average age of first-time homebuyers keeps climbing. Wall Street investors are buying up single-family homes and driving prices out of reach while corporate landlords use rent-setting algorithms to squeeze every dollar out of working families. I've been in the middle of this fight in Colorado, I was prime sponsor of Just Cause for Eviction and took on corporate rent-fixing head-on. At the federal level, we need massive investment in public and non-profit housing construction, universal housing vouchers, and a ban on both corporate rent-fixing algorithms and Wall Street's takeover of single-family homes. Housing is dignity. Housing is freedom. And any candidate who isn't talking about it isn't talking to the Colorado I know.
Stay up to date with the latest local news, sports, and investigations by downloading the KRDO13 app. Click here to download it from the Apple App Store. Android users can download it from Google Play here.
