Trump cites Colorado’s mail-in voting in moving military space HQ to Alabama

U.S. military operations in space will soon be led from Huntsville, Alabama. President Donald Trump announced he is moving U.S. Space Command headquarters out of Colorado Springs, Colorado, citing the state’s use of mail-in voting as a “big factor” in the decision.

“The problem I had with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting,” Trump said. “When a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections … so that played a big factor also.”

Trump also touted his support in conservative Alabama and slammed Colorado’s Democratic governor as he announced the relocation, the latest move in a years-long partisan tussle over the military’s space program.

The Sept. 2 announcement reverses a move by President Joe Biden overturning Trump’s 2021 decision to move Space Command to Alabama. Biden opted to keep the military’s newest combatant command in Colorado, which has been the temporary headquarters since the military space program was established in 2019.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, and other state leaders had pushed to make Alabama the permanent home of Space Command, battling with the Biden administration.

“The Biden administration chose to make this political,” said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, who joined Trump at the announcement along with Tuberville and other state officials.

A report released by the Government Accountability Office in June 2022 found the Alabama site – Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville – to be the “preferred location” over five other locations. But Biden opted in 2023 to keep Space Command in Colorado, which proponents said was best for military readiness.

“The deciding factor for President Biden in deciding to keep Space Command in Colorado Springs was operational readiness, pure and simple,” John Kirby, the National Security Council’s former coordinator for strategic communications, said at the time.

Tuberville and others continued to push for the relocation, though. The senator is a close Trump ally, and Alabama is a state Trump carried by 30 percentage points.

“I don’t think that influenced my decision,” Trump said of his Alabama victory.

Trump lost Colorado by 11 points. Every voter in the state receives a mail-in ballot.

The president has long railed against mail-in voting, recently trumpeting a possible executive order to curtail mail ballots, despite statements from election experts, including those in his first administration, who said mail-in voting is secure.

Colorado’s congressional delegation said in a statement that moving Space Command headquarters out of the state “weakens our national security at the worst possible time.”

“Moving Space Command sets our space defense apparatus back years, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, and hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia and North Korea,” the statement continues.

Trump has often linked federal funding decisions and politics. The president previously blocked a move to put the FBI’s headquarters in Maryland, calling it a “liberal state,” and suggested linking disaster aid in California to the state’s policy decisions.

Shifting Space Command to Huntsville would bring jobs and government spending to a state that has strongly backed the president.

About 1,700 personnel work at Space Command, according to congressional records.

Huntsville, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and a major hub for defense contractors such as L3Harris and Lockheed Martin, has long lobbied for the Space Command headquarters.

“We look forward to building a huge Space Command and having the Donald J. Trump Space Command center in Huntsville, Alabama,” Tuberville said.

Contributing: Reuters; Joey Garrison and Bart Jansen, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump moving U.S. Space Command to Huntsville, Albama