It’s that time of the year, when campaign ads seem to be everywhere — your TV, social media, streaming services and mailbox, especially if you live in a district that has a competitive race.
And while some ads have some good information, a lot of attack ads contain the bad and ugly.
Colorado’s 8th Congressional District
The race that’s gotten the most political funding is the state’s toss-up seat, where Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo is defending her seat for the first time against Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans.
Like in 2022, many of the ads seek to tie Caraveo to the fentanyl crisis.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican campaign arm, has released two ads — one featuring an unnamed drug enforcement officer and the other a former drug user.
“When Caraveo put her name on that bill, de-felonizing fentanyl, she signed the death warrants of hundreds of people,” said Thomas, the former drug user, in the ad.
Context: The ads go back to a 2019 bipartisan bill Caraveo co-sponsored while at the state house, along with more than 25 others, that made possession of 4 grams or less (a single use) of a Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 drug a misdemeanor instead of a felony. Dealers would still face felony charges. Caraveo was far from alone in supporting the idea. It passed the state House 43-20. Caraveo also voted for a 2022 bill that reversed the criminal penalties in that law as fentanyl deaths increased in the state.
Border Security and Fentanyl death
Another ad, this one from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC backed by Republican House leadership, features a mother whose daughter died from a fentanyl-laced pill that came across the border. The ad says Caraveo voted against solving the border crisis, cracking down on cartels and voted to de-felonize fentanyl (see above). “Yadira Caraveo had a chance to stop this and she did nothing.”
Context: This is an exaggeration. The ad focuses again on the 2019 bill, as well as Caraveo’s vote for one House bill in Congress, H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act. It’s a conservative Republican border bill that passed with only Republican votes (two Republicans joined all Democrats in voting no) and the partisan bill did not get taken up in the Senate. Caraveo has supported other border security measures in the House, some that had bipartisan support, which have also not advanced, as well as the bipartisan Senate border security bill that failed to move forward after House Republicans said it would be dead in that chamber.
Neither party has done much of anything big on border security, an issue that will require bipartisan negotiation and cooperation. Caraveo has voted for appropriations bills that became law that have funded border security and increased the number of border security agents, not something all Colorado representatives in Congress can say.
Additionally, the ad conflates border security with the fentanyl crisis. Most fentanyl that crosses the border does so at legal points of entry, with the vast majority coming over, not via migrants, but with those who are legally authorized to cross the border — more than half of whom are U.S. citizens.
Bipartisan Record
The Congressional Leadership Fund’s most recent ad against Caraveo takes aim at her bipartisan credentials with one man calling her a ‘liar” and a “liberal extremist.” Another says she votes with her party 90 percent of the time and that their families are worse off since Caraveo was elected.
Context: This ad makes some bold false statements like that Caraveo is lying about her bipartisan record and that she’s not working with Republicans. According to the Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index, Caraveo was the 28th most bipartisan member out of 436 in the first year of the 118th Congress. The stand-alone bill that she got passed, the TRANQ Research Act, she offered in partnership with GOP Rep. Mike Collins.
The ad focuses on votes, but many House votes are party-line votes — like votes on Rules and Motion to Recommit. Caraveo has broken with the Democratic party on votes for bills or resolutions dealing with energy, border security and immigration. Caraveo angered many Democrats when she voted for a resolution condemning Vice President Harris as the “border czar.” But again, some context: In a CPR News analysis of votes data published by ProPublica, Caraveo ranks 11th among Democratic members who have broken the most with their party on votes. Former GOP Rep. Ken Buck, who is the highest-ranked Colorado member on that list, still voted with his party about 82 percent of the time.
As for other claims in the ad — crime, drugs, homelessness getting worse or that she said she’d fix things, but made things worse — crime and homelessness are local issues, not ones a single member of Congress is responsible for. For more on the drug claims, see the above analysis of a different ad. Additionally, the ability of Caraveo — and indeed her entire party — to change things on her own is limited: Caraveo came into the House with Democrats in the minority and Republicans in the majority, so some of the blame in more not being done rests with the party that controls the chamber.
More Border Security
The Gabe Evans campaign, with the NRCC, has also put out an attack ad against Caraveo. Surrounded by law enforcement officers — one of whom says “drugs and crime are flowing into our community,” — Evans adds, “And Yadira Caraveo is responsible for it all.” They go on to talk of slashed police budgets, while Evans pitches his background as a former police officer and military helicopter pilot, saying he’ll be able to get it done.
Context: This is a gross exaggeration. First off, again Caraveo is one of 435 House members, she’s not responsible for it all, not even close. There’s plenty of blame to go around, again for both parties, for not working together to get a solution for decades on border security. Also, when Republicans controlled all three branches of government, they were not able to fix the border problem either, so it’s not just a Democrat problem. Additionally, Congress is not responsible for police budgets, that’s local governments, and there are several former law enforcement and military veterans in Congress who have not been able to get border security or immigration done at the Capitol. Finally, Evans said he would have voted against the bipartisan Senate border security bill, but the Border Patrol Union supported the bill. Caraveo would have supported that bill’s passage.
Evans and Abortion
The House Majority PAC, led by Democratic leaders, has also sponsored attack ads against Evans on issues they think could persuade voters, including abortion.
One ad features an OB-GYN saying Evans supports banning abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.
Context: Exaggeration and from a different time. Evans’ position on abortion has changed since he ran for statehouse in 2022 to now running for Congress in 2024. In a candidate survey in 2022, Evans checked a box that indicated he’d supported prohibiting abortion except to save the mother’s life. Evans, who is anti-abortion, explained that’s what the box said, so he checked it. But below that question on the survey, there was another box where he could add additional comments. He utilized it, but not to indicate his support of including exceptions for rape or incest. Now, Evans says he supports abortion exceptions for rape, incest and to save a woman’s life — and that he’d oppose a national abortion ban.
MAGA Extremist?
Caraveo has also launched some broadsides against Evans. One ad features an unaffiliated Iraq War vet who’s fed up with “partisan games” and says all he sees in Washington are “MAGA extremists like Gabe Evans.” The vet says Evans wants to ban abortion, invalidate gay marriages, and rewrite the Constitution.
Context: As far as CPR News can find, Evans has never spoken about rewriting the Constitution. The rest of the ad is an exaggeration. Evans has received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and spoke at Trump’s rally in Aurora. But Evans has said that Joe Biden won the 2020 election (although he has questions about how Pennsylvania conducted its election). Evans also touts his ability to work across the aisle by pointing to his time in the state house. While there, he was not part of the MAGA wing. He also says he opposes a national abortion ban.
In the same survey as he gave the abortion answer, Evans selected “strongly agree” that marriage is a “God-ordained, sacred and legal union of one man and one woman. No government has the authority to alter this definition.” He told 9News that in answering that question, he was agreeing that the government should not tell a church how to define marriage.
The claim against gay marriage also seems to be based on a letter he wrote to a local paper when he was 17 years old. In it, Evans said same-sex marriage was a bad idea and, if approved, would allow for other activities like incest. In a recent interview, Evans says his position on gay marriage has changed and that he will support an amendment to remove a prohibition on same-sex marriage from the Colorado State Constitution. Evans was not at the state house when a vote on the ballot measure hit the floor.
