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Rep. Joe Neguse is not much different today than when I met him in law school. Smart, affable, extraordinarily capable and endowed with a million-dollar grin. He is also still on the rise.
When I ran across a recent news bio on him after he took another step up the congressional leadership ladder, the big questions are: What is next and how far can he go? Those are the questions he will be wrestling with himself over the next few years.
Only 40 and in his third term in office, Neguse is already one of the most powerful members of Congress. While Rep. Lauren Boebert chases cameras, misses votes and generally makes a fool of herself and her congressional district (current or potentially future), Neguse has been a consummate avenue for legislation and congressional governance.
But it is ingrained in every politician toward the path ahead and divine what choices may lead to even greater influence. It is the simple nature of the job. For Neguse, that means determining whether to stay in Congress and continue to move up or seek another job, either as a U.S. senator or Colorado governor. He will have to make that decision soon since, depending on what Sen. John Hickenlooper does, the races for both offices will begin shortly after the 2024 election comes to an end.
My advice? Stay in Congress and keep climbing.
In 2014, I was in the minority when I had the same advice for Rep. Cory Gardner. He had a similar meteoric rise after first being elected in 2010. In two terms he had already been dubbed as a rising star. That is what attracted members of the Colorado GOP to recruit him to run for U.S. Senate against Sen. Mark Udall. Gardner represented the best chance for Republicans to win a pickup seat.
I agree with that analysis. Gardner’s announcement chased credible but less likely to win candidates like Ken Buck, Owen Hill and Amy Stephens out of the race. He trounced state Sen. Randy Baumgardner in the primary and beat Udall in the election.
But for Gardner it represented a long-term mistake.
Had Gardner stayed in the U.S. House rather than trading up to the U.S. Senate, he well could have been the Speaker of the House right now. He was only a few spots removed a decade ago. He would have been reelected time-and-again by the most conservative district in Colorado (the very fact that led Boebert to abandon constituents across the state).
I cannot imagine that Gardner would not have been a top choice to replace Kevin McCarthy when Boebert & Co. humiliated McCarthy by making him the first Speaker stripped of his gavel. Certainly the relationships he cultivated added to his political skill would have made him far more likely to take the top seat than current Speaker Mike Johnson.
Instead, Garder ended up on the same statewide 2020 reelection ballot as Donald Trump. In a state that had been trending toward navy blue on the electoral map for the past two decades, that was a death knell. Gardner lost his reelection and political career by nearly 10 points to Hickenlooper.
The same political calculus obviously does not apply for Neguse. No Democrat is in danger of losing a statewide election anytime soon, particularly as the Colorado GOP continues to actively shrink its membership.
But Neguse is not a sure thing to win a primary. Assuming Hickenlooper runs for reelection, that means running to replace term-limited Gov. Jared Polis in 2026. Neguse is one of the top names floated for the role among the Colorado political chattering class. Attorney General Phil Weiser and Secretary of State Jena Griswold also garner plenty of speculation.
While I think that Neguse would be the favorite — he is a better campaigner and political operative than Weiser, and Griswold turns off too many people even in her own party — why take such a risk? Sure, Neguse rebounded from a 2014 loss in the Secretary of State race, but he did not have as far to fall. Losing in 2026 would leave Neguse badly bruised and without a seat at the table.
In contrast, if Neguse stays in Congress, there is no reason to believe he will not be one of the most influential individuals in Washington, D.C., and across the country for decades to come. While the path to the Speakership would presumably be blocked by current Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Neguse would very likely be one of his most trusted lieutenants.
Furthermore, surprising falls from grace happen all the time in politics — just ask former Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, whose career was cut short just shy of the Speakership when he lost a primary election. It is not impossible that Neguse could find himself in the pole position to replace Jeffries should anything unexpected happen to the latter.
From such an elevated position in Congress, Neguse could shape the future of the country far more effectively than from behind the governor’s desk in Colorado. I do not believe any political commentator believes that there is a single governor who was more relevant to U.S. politics than Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., over the past two decades, whether she was Speaker or not.
Whatever path Neguse chooses, his future is almost as bright as his smile. And I’ll be there to support him in any event. But for the sake of Colorado and the country, I hope he stays right where he is at.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on Twitter: @MarioNicolaiEsq.
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