“I tried farming for a while,” he told a visitor. “I would rather get run over by a bison.”
Just one bison is remaining on the Spomer Ranch, down from 60 or 70 a few years ago. “I’m retiring,” Hayes said. “Just about 70 and my body isn’t working too well anymore.”
Trouble is the last bison’s name. And Hayes was quick to add that trouble is what he sees in Washington one month into President Donald Trump’s second act.
“I don’t like him as a person,” Hayes said. “I think he is arrogant. Kind of a jerk.”
Yes, Hayes believes the federal workforce can be trimmed considerably. But to him, the current approach seems more impulsive than coherent. “I’m not sure (Trump) thought through the process,” Hayes said. “It’s kind of like, ‘Let’s just get it over with and dump everybody.’”
Plus, he doesn’t trust or believe Elon Musk and bristles when he hears the billionaire and his team are trying to gain access to sensitive tax and Social Security records.
“I don’t like it,” Hayes said. “I don’t think they should be in our business.”
Hayes rolled his eyes as he recounted Trump and Musk alleging there are numerous people allegedly between the ages of 100 and 150 claiming Social Security.
“Can you believe any of that crap?” he said as we drove across the 100-acre ranch. “You can’t substantiate it. You can’t believe it. So that is a trust issue. … (Trump) is doing all this stuff and I don’t think he understands the ramifications of what he is doing.”
It is a damning take from a blue-collar three-time Trump voter who lives in a rural area where Democrats have struggled in recent years. But Democrats should hold the celebration. We ask Hayes what he would choose if he could redo his 2024 vote now that he has watched Trump’s tumultuous first month. “I would still do Trump,” he said.
That was a recurring theme as we visited Colorado’s 8th Congressional District as part of our “All Over the Map” project. The district stretches from the northern Denver suburbs to just south of the Wyoming border. It is 40% Hispanic, evenly divided politically, and will be critical as House Republicans defend their tiny majority in the 2026 midterms. The president’s political standing is almost always the best midterm barometer, and on this first visit, we focused on Trump voters.
“I love it,” Esmeralda Ramirez-Ray said of Trump’s frenetic first month. “That is what I voted for.”
She wholeheartedly backed Musk’s march through federal agencies.
“I don’t know why it surprises anybody,” she said, noting Musk’s big role in the final weeks of the campaign. “You haven’t been paying attention if that is a surprise.”
Asked where she gets her news, Ramirez-Ray listed Musk’s X social media platform and the Epoch Times, a far-right publication known for its support of Trump and its history of criticizing vaccines and advancing conspiracy theories. “I don’t watch Fox,” she said. “I don’t watch CNN. I don’t watch ABC, NBC, any of that. … It’s really hard for me to get news I can trust or that I can believe in.”
Ramirez-Ray was raised as a Democrat and said she and her parents faced backlash from other Latinos when they warmed to Trump back in 2016. “They couldn’t believe someone of Hispanic origin would support somebody that was being labeled a racist. We didn’t believe that he was, and we campaigned, and we voted for him.”
Now, she sees a first month of keeping promises. She does air one disagreement with Trump — wishing he would change his tone when it comes to immigration.
“I was raised as a migrant worker working in the fields,” Ramirez-Ray said in an interview at her office in Greeley, 65 miles north of Denver. “Those are the people out there picking their crops. So even though I support Trump, I don’t believe he is the end-all, be-all savior of humanity. Nobody is.”
Ramirez-Ray works as an interpreter for court defendants who don’t understand English, and many of her clients are undocumented immigrants who work in meatpacking plants, construction, farming, or other jobs. She agrees that some undocumented immigrants are violent, but said she wishes Trump would understand that “the majority of my clients who are here are good, honest people trying to make a living, and there should be a legal pathway for them to remain here.”
Todd Waufle founded Satire Brewing in 2018. It is in Thornton, a community 12 miles north of Denver, that Waufle describes as “50-50” politically and where one bipartisan complaint is the fast-moving suburban sprawl.
“The day after the election, yeah, it was 50-50,” Waufle said. “Half the people were crying in their beers, really upset. I mean emotional. … Then the other half are, like, high-fiving and cheering and jovial.”
Count Waufle among the jovial, then and now.
“I like him going full-speed,” Waufle said of Trump. “Let’s get things done. Let’s find out if the policies work, if they don’t work. … I’m all for him getting in action.”
Like Ramirez-Ray, Waufle has no issues with Musk and his work, at least not yet.
“He can make things happen, too,” Waufle said. “You got two guys in there playing, working.”
Not that Waufle loves everything in the Trump agenda.
Business at the brewery is solid, and he constantly debates expanding. During a tour, Waufle showed us new fermentation tanks not yet in use and an open space where he wants to install canning machines so he can increase production and sales. But that is on hold for now because of Trump’s tariffs on aluminum.
“If you fly enough, you understand,” he said of navigating the early days of the new Trump term. “Buckle your seat belt. Turbulence ahead.”
However, he voiced confidence that things will ultimately settle to a point where he feels comfortable with his expansion plan. Waufle’s approach is a trademark of many Trump voters: accept the things that make them cringe to get the things they believe Trump is best equipped to deliver, beginning with a better economy and a stronger border.
“He’s a little pompous, arrogant,” Waufle said. “It’s not necessarily my style. But it works for him. … Trump is going to say what he is going to say and, yes, some of it is going to be exaggerated, some is not going to be true. But at the end of the day, I think you have to sift through all that. Is he going to get things done? Is he going to get the country moving the right way? Is the border going to get taken care of? Are we going to cut costs?”
Austin Jenkins cast his November ballot hoping lower taxes and less regulation would help his family and small businesses, which include a cocktail bar and the Greeley Hatchet House — an axe-throwing venue.
“I think he is a little outrageous and wild at times,” Jenkins, 28, said of Trump. “I’m not necessarily a Trump guy. I’m just much more conservative in my opinions.’
His wife’s family are Democrats, and the conversation with Jenkins is rich with evidence that his politics are shifting as he starts a family and his businesses take root in Greeley’s diverse community.
“They have taught me a lot and it has softened my heart a lot, too,” Jenkins said.
He worries that Trump’s tariffs will add costs and stress to small businesses already dealing with high costs and high interest rates.
And Jenkins sees fear in a Latino community he describes as vital to his businesses and the area.
“We’ve got friends and family that we care about a lot and, like, they’re nervous they are going to drop their kids off at school and somebody’s going to grab them.”
Jenkins is all for a stronger border and a more organized immigration process. But he wishes Trump would accept the reality of communities such as Greeley that have significant numbers of undocumented workers.
“The hardest-working people I’ve ever met,” Jenkins said. “It’s unfortunate what’s happening. I think there is a better way to go about it. I don’t know if it is necessarily just force them out.”
The blizzard of executive actions also is unsettling.
“I thought there’s supposed to be checks and balances,” Jenkins said.
Trump won’t be on the 2026 ballot, of course, and we are just a month into his new term. But if concerns like those Jenkins has about immigration, Musk, and presidential power continue to grow, battleground Republicans such as freshman GOP Rep. Gabe Evans here could find a more difficult midterm climate. Evans won by a little more than 2,000 votes, and the district is already a top Democratic target.
For now, though, what comes up most among voters here is the same issue that dominated the 2024 race.
“The big thing here is the cost of living is getting crazy here in Colorado,” Jenkins said. “It seems like everybody is kind of drowning a little bit.”
Hayes, the soon-to-retire bison rancher, jokes that “eggs are worth more than diamonds” now. He also is trying to solve another cost-of-living issue that makes him cranky — not a good thing for any incumbent politician.
“I have one drug that went from $4.60 in December to $45 in January,” Hayes said. “Nobody knew why. It’s those kinds of things that kind of tick a guy off a little bit.”
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