Republican Gabe Evans wins Colorado’s 8th Congressional District

Updated 5:08 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 11, 2024.

Five days after the election, state Rep. Gabe Evans is moving from the Colorado House to the U.S. House.

The unofficial tally shows Evans ahead of the district’s current congresswoman, Democrat Yadira Caraveo, by 2,596 votes, just about three-quarters of a point. Caraveo conceded Sunday afternoon, though the AP had not yet called the race.

That margin is not within the threshold to trigger a mandatory recount. Recent recounts have ended with no more than a handful of votes changing for either candidate.

In a statement, Evans thanked Caraveo for her service to the district and said he's "incredibly humbled" to have been picked by voters.

"It is an honor to be entrusted with the job of representing you and your families, and I am ready to fight back for a better direction for all Coloradans," said Evans. "I have spent my entire life running toward challenge, and now I am ready to take on my next challenge -- representing our communities in D.C."

Caraveo thanked her family, campaign staff, volunteers and supporters for all their work.

“It’s been the honor of a lifetime to serve the people of Colorado’s 8th district,” she said in a statement. “While this isn’t the outcome we had hoped for, the work is not over. I look forward to returning to Washington to finish out this term and will continue to be an independent voice for the people of this district.”

For the first few days of counting, Caraveo held a slim but steady lead. That flipped Friday night, when a large batch of returns from Weld County moved Evans ahead by just over 2,500 votes, and he stayed in the lead from that point onward. 

The campaigns and their allies had volunteers out over the weekend knocking on doors and otherwise trying to contact voters whose ballots were rejected, urging them to fix the problem and get their vote counted.

The 8th District was drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission in 2021 with an eye toward competitiveness, and it continues to live up to that reputation; two years ago, Caraveo’s margin of victory was just 1,632 votes.

Hart Van Denburg/CPR News

The seat covers portions of Adams, Weld and Larimer Counties. Most of its voters live in Thornton, Commerce City, Westminster and surrounding communities. Caraveo won that portion of the district, but not by enough to make up for her deficit in Greeley, Evans and other towns in the northern end of the seat.

Evans’ victory means that despite Democrats’ dominance in statewide elections, the state’s House delegation in the next Congress will be evenly split, 4-4, between the parties. 

This result also pushes Republicans slightly closer to their goal of holding onto control of the House. The party has won 214 seats compared to Democrats’ 203, with 16 still undecided. At this point, Republicans need to win just four more of the outstanding races to take the majority.

On Sunday, the National Republican Congressional Committee congratulated Evans on his win.

“Gabe Evans is a fighter for the American Dream who will work tirelessly on their behalf in Congress, and we look forward to seeing the valuable results Congressman-elect Evans will deliver for Coloradans,” NRCC Spokeswoman Delanie Bomar said in a statement.

A hard fought race for a significant seat

Evans was still in his first term in the Colorado House when he threw his hat in the ring to take on Caraveo. A former Army helicopter pilot and Arvada police officer, Evans made public safety and border security big themes in his run. 

For her part, Caraveo highlighted her background as a pediatrician in the district and pushed her bipartisanship credentials. Her campaign also attacked Evans repeatedly as “too extreme” in his views on things like abortion.

Caraveo, whose parents are first generation immigrants from Mexico, was the first Latino elected to Congress from Colorado. Evans is also of Mexican-American heritage.

This was easily Colorado’s most expensive House race this year. More than $20 million dollars that poured in, with Democrats outspending Republicans. Residents in the district experienced that spending as a never-ending stream of mailers, callers and door-knockers, while TV viewers across the Front Range encountered Caraveo and Evans in commercial break after commercial break.

Evans was able to make the path a bit easier for himself by convincing the Libertarian in the race to drop out and support him. In return, Evans pledged to support things like an audit of aid to Ukraine, Second Amendment rights and ‘fundamental reforms’ to the  Department of Education.