State Representative Manny Rutinel announced his candidacy this week for Colorado's 8th Congressional District, aiming to jump from the State Capitol to the U.S. House of Representatives. He's the first big-name Democrat to challenge Congressman Gabe Evans, a first-term Republican elected to the seat in November.
CD8 is the most competitive congressional district in Colorado — and among the most competitive districts in the country. A Democrat, Yadira Caraveo, won the newly formed district's first election in 2022 by a margin of less than 1 percentage point. She lost her seat to Evans two years later, with the Republican winning by less than 0.8 of a percentage point.
While Colorado is a solidly Democratic state, the party control of CD8 could make a difference on a national scale. Republicans have the narrowest majority in the U.S. House of Representatives that either party has seen in almost 100 years, making CD8 a key battleground district for the next election.
“Our district deserves a representative who understands our aspirations and struggles,” Rutinel said in his candidacy announcement on January 27. “I am committed to being that voice in Congress. ...I have seen firsthand how rising housing and health care costs, along with limited job opportunities, are hurting our community. Together, we can address the pressing issues facing our district and ensure a prosperous future for all residents.”
Evans's spokesperson responded to Rutinel's candidacy in a statement to Colorado Politics: “While Democrats battle it out to see who can go the furthest to the left in this primary, Congressman Gabe Evans is working hard to fix Colorado’s crime, immigration, and energy crises that Manny and his liberal friends created."
We're a long way out from Election Day on November 3, 2026, but before the field of candidates gets crowded, let's compare the contenders for CD8:
Background
Rutinel, thirty, is a former environmental attorney in Commerce City who leads Climate Refarm, an advocacy organization that helps transition farmers to a plant-based food system. He previously worked as a lawyer for Earthjustice and an economist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He holds a law degree from Yale, a master’s degree in economics from Johns Hopkins University and bachelor’s degrees in microbiology and economics from the University of Florida.Rutinel is a first-generation American raised by a single mother who immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic, where his father was a senator. He has lived in Colorado since 2021.
Evans, 38, is a former police officer who worked for the Arvada Police Department from 2011 to 2022. A Fort Lupton resident, he served in the U.S. Army and Colorado Army National Guard for twelve years as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot and company commander. He holds a bachelor's degree in government-strategic intelligence from the private conservative Christian college, Patrick Henry College in Virginia.
Evans owns and operates a family farm in southern Weld County alongside his wife, with whom he has two sons. He is a Colorado native and a second-generation American whose grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico.
Election Performance
Rutinel represents District 32 in the Colorado House. He was appointed to the seat in October 2023 by a vacancy committee after his predecessor, Dafna Michaelson Jenet, left for the State Senate. He was elected to his seat in November; marking his first election to public office. He ran unopposed in both the primary and general elections.After announcing his Congressional run, Rutinel's campaign said it raised $400,000 within 24 hours, which his campaign claims is the highest first-day fundraising total for any Congress seat in the state's history. That total increased to $500,000 within the first two days, Colorado Politics reports.
Evans represented District 48 in the Colorado House from January 2023 to January 2025 before he entered Congress. He beat out Republican Terry Lee Robert DeGroot in the GOP primary and Democrat Spring Erickson in the general election. Evans also faced a primary challenger for his 2024 CD8 race, winning over Janak Joshi, 77.5 percent to 22.5 percent, despite Joshi being endorsed by the state Republican Party. He defeated incumbent Democrat Caraveo in the general election by fewer than 2,500 votes out of the over 333,000 ballots cast.
Evans hasn't yet reported any fundraising totals for the 2026 election, but during his first run for Congress, it took Evans over six months to bring in $500,000, Colorado Politics reports. He ultimately won the race despite Caraveo outraising him three to one.
Policies
Rutinel says his Congressional campaign will focus on "reducing housing and healthcare costs, creating good-paying jobs, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and defending the rights and freedoms of all Coloradans."He touts his biggest policy achievements in the State Legislature as expanding various tax credits, permitting out-of-state telehealth providers to serve Colorado patients, prohibiting residential occupancy limits, and continuing the state's youth mental health services program.
Evans campaigned on providing support for law enforcement, cracking down on crime, reducing inflation, securing the border and protecting parental rights.
Some of his notable votes since entering Congress include supporting the Laken Riley Act, to require that ICE detain people who are in the country illegally over theft-related crimes, and supporting the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, requiring doctors to provide immediate life-saving care to infants born alive during attempted abortions. He has also called for increased deportations in Colorado and spoken in favor of the federal spending freeze.
Controversies
Rutinel has been called "radical" by Republicans, largely for his environmentalist activities that some view as anti-agriculture. In addition to his work with Climate Refarm urging farmers to switch to a plant-based food system, critics often circulate a 2016 photo of Rutinel promoting veganism in college, showing him shirtless and wearing a shower curtain that reads "1 lb of beef equals 180 showers."As a student at Yale in 2019, Rutinel was arrested for disorderly conduct while participating in a protest against the university's investment in fossil fuels.
Evans has been slammed by Democrats for past comments on gay marriage. In 2004, when he was seventeen, Evans wrote a letter to the editor in opposition to legalizing gay marriage, saying it would have a "terrible effect" on society and open the door for "perverted and immoral practices," listing "incest, pederasty and bestiality."
Evans says his views on gay marriage have since changed. However, in a 2022 candidate survey, he wrote that he "strongly agree[s]" marriage is between a man and a woman and "no government has the authority to alter this definition." He was excused from last year's vote on a bill asking voters to remove the gay marriage ban from Colorado's constitution.
He has also been criticized for his hesitancy to affirm that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. During a January 2024 debate, when asked to answer yes or no whether the election was stolen from Donald Trump, Evans said "no-ish." At a different event in June, he said "those aren't yes-no questions." The responses prompted the New York Times to label Evans as among the "extreme" "election deniers" replacing "mainstream conservatives" in the Republican Party.
Evans faced backlash during his Congressional campaign when his long-time political director was exposed for sharing posts on social media promoting antisemitism, political violence and conspiracy theories. Evans fired the director shortly after the posts received media attention.
