President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he is withdrawing his endorsement of Republican Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd after the first-term congressman voted for H.J.Res.72, a resolution aimed at Trump’s emergency tariff authority.
Trump said he is backing Hope Scheppelman, a critical care nurse practitioner and U.S. Navy veteran, to challenge Hurd in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
Hurd was among six House Republicans who crossed the aisle earlier this month to pass H.J.Res.72, which would repeal Trump’s tariffs on Canada by terminating the national emergency used to justify them.
The vote landed at a volatile moment for U.S. trade policy. The day before Trump’s announcement, the Supreme Court struck down the bulk of Trump’s tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, finding his expanded use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act exceeded his authority. Trump, however, announced a new 15 percent global tariff and vowed to pursue trade policy through alternative legal channels, Newsweek noted.
This is not a subtle message from the president. In a party that campaigns on fighting for American workers, American producers, and American leverage, the question is no longer whether trade will be contested. It is those who are willing to take the political heat to contest it.
Trump framed the move as a direct response to Hurd’s posture on tariffs and what Trump sees as a failure to support an America First trade agenda. In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote:
"Based on a lack of support, in particular for the unbelievably successful TARIFFS imposed on Foreign Countries and Companies which has made America Richer, Stronger, Bigger, and Better than ever before, I am hereby WITHDRAWING my Endorsement of RINO Congressman Jeff Hurd, of Colorado’s 3rd District, and fully Endorsing Highly Respected Patriot, Hope Scheppelman, to take his place in Congress."
Trump also accused Hurd of misplaced priorities, arguing that the Colorado Republican was “more interested in protecting Foreign Countries that have been ripping us off for decades than he is the United States of America.”
And he made clear this is not how he prefers to operate. Trump described taking back an endorsement as “a difficult decision,” saying he has only done it once before, citing his 2022 withdrawal of support from Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks.
Hurd defended his vote in a statement released February 19, grounding his position in Congress’s constitutional authority over trade.
As Hurd put it:
"Today's vote is grounded first and foremost in the Constitution. Article I gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations and to levy tariffs. Those delegations were never intended to serve as a permanent vehicle for sweeping, long-term trade policy."
Hurd also warned about setting a precedent that future presidents could use, even in ways Republicans would oppose.
"If we normalize broad emergency trade powers today, we should expect that a future president — of either party — will rely on the same authority in ways many of us would strongly oppose."
That is the core clash: Trump is signaling that the economic fight with foreign competitors cannot be run with one hand tied behind the nation’s back, while Hurd is signaling that the method matters because precedent lasts longer than any one presidency.
Both arguments are serious. But only one of them is paired with a blunt political reality: the party’s voters are watching who actually stands with the president when the fight gets real.
Trump first endorsed Hurd for reelection in October of 2025, calling him “an Incredible Representative for the Great People” of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. The endorsement was part of a batch of 28 House Republican incumbents Trump backed in quick succession, and it marked the first time Trump had thrown his support behind the Grand Junction attorney, who was elected in 2024 by a comfortable margin in the Republican-leaning seat.
Hurd won that 2024 race after his primary opponent, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, moved across the state to run in the heavily Republican 4th Congressional District, where she won election to a third term.
Now, Trump is placing his bet on Scheppelman, described as a former Colorado GOP vice chair, critical care nurse practitioner, and U.S. Navy veteran. Trump said she “knows the America First Policies required.” In the same Truth Social post, Trump listed the agenda he expects her to carry, including “Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A.,” “Champion American Energy DOMINANCE,” “Keep our Border SECURE,” and “Stop Migrant Crime.”
Hurd and Scheppelman are set to face off in the June 30 GOP primary for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
Trump’s decision to pull his endorsement marks only the second time he has withdrawn support from a sitting Republican lawmaker, according to the source material. The first, in March 2022, came after Mo Brooks urged voters to move past the 2020 election, which Trump called “going woke.” Brooks later lost his primary to Katie Britt.
Here, Trump is turning a policy dispute into a governing test: if the administration is moving to rebuild leverage on trade, it expects its own party to stop undercutting it, especially when the legal terrain is already contested, and the Supreme Court has narrowed the president’s authority under IEEPA.
Hurd, for his part, pointed to district-level economic concerns, including agricultural producers operating on tight margins and the presence of “the largest steel rail mill in the United States” located within Colorado’s 3rd, arguing that unpredictable trade policy affects “payrolls, investment decisions, and long-term planning.”
That is the tension Republican voters will have to referee: the desire for stable conditions at home versus a national strategy that uses tariffs as leverage abroad.
With Trump’s endorsement now behind Scheppelman, the primary race in Colorado’s 3rd District is set to intensify.
In the Trump era, endorsements are not ceremonial. They are enforcement.
