As election night heads into the wee hours, the race in Colorado’s most politically balanced congressional district is still too close to call.
Incumbent Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo leads her Republican challenger, state Rep. Gabe Evans, by 4,247 votes, less than two points, with many ballots still remaining to be counted.
Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, north of Denver, is a true tossup seat, drawn by the 2021 redistricting commission to be evenly divided between the two parties. The first race for the seat, in 2022, wasn’t settled for more than a day after the polls closed.
On Tuesday night, before his election party wrapped up, Evans spoke briefly with supporters and encouraged them to remain optimistic.
“This was going to be one of the closest races in the country. I could have told you that 16 months ago. So no surprises, no changes. We're going to wake up tomorrow morning. We're going to see where the numbers are at, and we're going to keep moving forward,” he said.
Evans said he’s feeling good about a path to victory because many ballots in the more Republican end of the district are still outstanding. "We know that there's going to be more of the conservative vote coming out of Weld County. So we absolutely have that path. The trajectories are there, the percentages are there."
Caraveo did not host an election night event. As a party for Adams County Democrats was wrapping up, her campaign’s communications director, Kevin Porter said, “Our team is closely monitoring votes as they come in and are cautiously optimistic about where we are.”
The outcome of this race could help determine the balance of power in the U.S. House. That means both of the campaigns and their allies, spent recent months saturating the airwaves, filling mailboxes and hitting the streets to find and persuade voters.
Evans is wrapping up his first term in the legislature, representing portions of Adams and Weld counties. He got into politics after spending 10 years as an Arvada police officer and serving as a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army. He ran on issues like border control and public safety and the economy. He grew up in Aurora and in Elbert County.
Caraveo, a pediatrician, is finishing her first term in Congress. Prior to that she served in the statehouse for four years. She made reproductive health care and her efforts to lower healthcare costs and cap the price of insulin a key part of her campaign.
She also stressed her bipartisan credentials — the Lugar Center ranked her the 28th most bipartisan congress member — and her ability to get legislation passed, despite being in the minority.
“I've really made sure to represent a very purple district well over the last two years by sometimes pushing against my own party,” she said. Those pushes include supporting House Republicans’ version of the Farm Bill in committee and voting to “strongly condemn” Vice President Kamala Harris’ handling of the border.
While she raised three times as much money as her challenger, some Democrats worried she didn’t do enough campaigning. Caraveo announced earlier this year that she has depression and that taking care of her mental health has impacted her schedule.
A key element of the race in this largely working-class district was voter turnout and the question of how the margins in the presidential race might translate to the down-ticket contests.
Colorado’s 8th Congressional District is the most diverse seat in the state, with Latino residents making up nearly 40 percent of the population. Both candidates turned to their family backgrounds to try to connect with those voters. Caraeo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants while Evans has Mexican heritage through his maternal grandparents.
For Evans, a big part of his work was just to introduce himself to the voters in the district, especially since he’s relatively new to politics.
“They call it a political campaign for a reason. I've been a part of a military campaign, and so you're tired and you know that you got to keep pushing to finish strong, and so that's what we're doing right now,” he told CPR News ahead of the election. “But we're feeling really, really good about just being able to carry the message to the voters about how we make things better.”
Evans’ background attracted Chris Fahrenbruch to Evans’ campaign. The Thornton Republican voter is a U.S. Air Force veteran.
“I saw a flier with Gabe's name on it and saw that he was military, he was law enforcement, and I was like, that's my guy,” said Fahrenbruch at Evans’ election night party in Brighton at the Bella Sera event center, a wedding venue just off the town’s main street. The venue had white mesh drapes across the ceiling and white flowers.
Early in the evening, Evans greeted the crowd and took pictures with backers, before moving upstairs to a small room to watch results with his staff and family. The mood was subdued for most of the night as Evans trailed Caraveo in the early returns.
Whether the final votes will reverse that split, or cement it, could become clearer when counting resumes Wednesday morning.
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