From left, Colorado 8th Congressional District GOP primary candidates former state Rep. Janak Joshi and state Rep. Gabe Evans participate in a debate at the Grizzly Rose in Denver on June 1, 2024. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
A crowd of Republican activists and insiders gathered under the longhorn-skull disco ball at a Denver country music venue Saturday to hear from a slate of candidates hoping to represent two adjacent but starkly different congressional districts centered on northeastern Colorado.
The first of the debates hosted at the Grizzly Rose by the Republican Women of Weld and the Lincoln Club of Colorado featured GOP state Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton and former state Rep. Janak Joshi, who are going head-to-head for the Republican nomination in the 8th Congressional District. The state’s newest and most competitive district, it was created by an independent redistricting commission in 2021 and is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo of Thornton, a Democrat who narrowly won the seat two years ago.
Evans, who holds a large fundraising advantage over Joshi and has won the endorsements of many state and national GOP figures, is a former Army helicopter pilot and Arvada police officer who was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2022. He pitched himself as someone who would “never compromise” on core principles but can “talk to anybody” in the battleground 8th District, which includes Democratic-leaning suburbs in north metro Denver as well as more conservative areas in Weld County.
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“I live in this district, I work in this district, my kids go to school in this district,” Evans said. “I can win those moderates that we need to be able to flip the seat and send a common-sense conservative to Washington.”
Evans told debate moderators his support for former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s presumptive nominee for president, was unchanged by his conviction this week by a New York jury on 34 felony fraud charges related to a scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn star.
Trump has vowed that on the first day of his second presidential term he would “begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” and laid out plans in an April interview with Time magazine to use local police departments and the U.S. military to carry out his program.
Trump has frequently compared the scope of his plans to a 1954 U.S. government operation named after a racial slur for Mexicans living in the United States, which deported an estimated 1.1 million people to Mexico. The crackdown resulted in conditions on trains, trucks and cargo ships that a later congressional investigation likened to “slave ships” and led to the deaths of at least 88 deportees.
Evans, the grandson of Mexican immigrants, did not answer directly when asked if he supported Trump’s plans to deport all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. But after prodding, he said he would not ultimately object to Trump’s use of the military to enforce his deportation program, though he prefers aggressive measures to force state and local authorities to comply first.
“We need to go after the sanctuary city and state policies that are handcuffing our law enforcement at all levels,” Evans said. “After that, then you can look at what else is necessary to protect the territorial integrity of the United States, to include National Guard.”
That answer and others throughout the debate drew pointed remarks from Joshi.
“I won’t be wishy-washy like that. I will support President Trump,” Joshi said to cheers from the crowd.
‘Yes-ish’ and ‘no-ish’
Joshi, an Indian immigrant, served three terms in the state House between 2011 and 2017, representing Colorado Springs. He acknowledged during Saturday’s debate that he had only registered to vote in the 8th District in February of this year.
In response to moderators’ questions, he denied that he was misrepresenting himself by wearing a physician’s coat and stethoscope in campaign materials, despite the fact that he surrendered his medical license in 2008. He said that he could have won the “frivolous lawsuit” that led to the revocation but chose to retire rather than pay $100,000 or more for his legal defense.
“It’s a very similar situation that’s going on with President Trump,” Joshi said. “The government has an unlimited amount of taxpayer money … This government needs to be controlled, they are harassing the citizens.”
Evans was asked by moderators to explain his responses, in a previous candidate forum, of “yes-ish” and “no-ish” to questions relating to whether the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. He said the decision in October 2020 by social media platforms to flag or suppress stories about leaked data from Hunter Biden’s laptop amounted to election interference.
“That information being kept away from the voters prior to the election was an act of interference in that election,” Evans said.
Media outlets and tech platforms expressed widespread concerns at the time about the veracity of the material, which was provided by close Trump allies to the New York Post. Much of the leaked material has since been authenticated and no evidence of tampering has emerged, but although the laptop’s hard drive contained salacious material involving Hunter Biden, repeated investigations, including by congressional Republicans, have found nothing on it to corroborate right-wing conspiracy theories involving the Biden family and Ukraine.
This district needs someone that reflects them, and will reach out to our neighbors and treat them like what they are — not our enemy, someone for us to persuade.
– Deborah Flora, Republican candidate in the 4th Congressional District
Evans has benefited from over $270,000 in outside spending in the 8th District primary by Americans for Prosperity, a deep-pocketed super PAC funded by the conservative billionaire Charles Koch. Evans brushed aside Joshi’s characterizations of the group as “fight(ing) against Donald Trump.”
“Ben Franklin said it best: Hang together or hang separately,” Evans said. “If Americans for Prosperity wants to help me unseat one of the most leftist members of Congress … I’m willing to work as a big-tent Republican.”
Boebert, Lopez absent from 4th District debates
Saturday’s “rumble” also featured two debates between candidates in the 4th District, which has been vacant since Republican former U.S. Rep. Ken Buck’s March resignation from Congress. But two of the most notable figures in the battles over that seat’s future were absent from the stage.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who has moved across the state and switched to the 4th District race after nearly losing her 2022 bid for reelection in the 3rd District, which she still represents, skipped Saturday’s event after participating in two other debates last week.
From left, Colorado 4th Congressional District candidates Peter Yu, former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, Deborah Flora, state Rep. Mike Lynch and state Rep. Richard Holtorf participate in a debate at the Grizzly Rose in Denver on June 1, 2024. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
Her five rivals in the crowded GOP primary are former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, a 16-year statehouse veteran who has been endorsed by many Republican insiders; state Rep. Richard Holtorf of Akron; state Rep. Mike Lynch of Wellington; Deborah Flora, a conservative talk radio host; and Peter Yu, a finance and mortgage consultant.
All five participated in Saturday’s debate and took frequent potshots at the absent Boebert, who has a substantial financial advantage over the rest of the field and has won endorsements from House Republican leadership and the Colorado Republican Party.
The 4th District, which encompasses Douglas County and much of Colorado’s Eastern Plains, is the state’s most conservative congressional district, with 58% of voters in the district having backed Trump in the 2020 election, compared to 39.5% for Biden.
But all five of Boebert’s rivals have said they would not have joined her in voting against certifying the results of the 2020 election in the hours following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and only Holtorf on Saturday said he would seek to join House Republicans’ far-right Freedom Caucus, of which Boebert is a prominent member. Flora said the district’s growing suburban population and ranks of unaffiliated voters aren’t a fit for Boebert’s confrontational style.
“This district needs someone that reflects them, and will reach out to our neighbors and treat them like what they are — not our enemy, someone for us to persuade,” she said.
“If you’re looking for someone that wants to be on TV, I’m not it,” said Sonnenberg. “If you want somebody that’s a work horse, and not a show horse, that’s me.”
The winner of the 4th District’s GOP primary on June 25 will advance to November’s general election, where they will be the heavy favorite. But before then, the district will be represented by the winner of a special election, also on June 25, contested by candidates chosen by a small committee of party members, including Democrat Trisha Calvarese and Republican Greg Lopez, a self-described placeholder candidate.
Trisha Calvarese, the Democratic nominee in the June 25 4th District special election, participates in a debate at the Grizzly Rose in Denver on June 1, 2024. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
Lopez was absent from a second debate Saturday between candidates in the special election. Organizers said that he had agreed to participate but pulled out on Friday after demanding that the Republican Women of Weld, one of the groups hosting the event, endorse his candidacy.
Calvarese — who is also running in the 4th District Democratic primary against two other contenders, Ike McCorkle and John Padora — said she would stick up for “working class issues” in the conservative district.
“I’m pro-families, and I’m pro-people who work for a living,” Calvarese said. “I’m not a labels person. I’m not an actual politician. This is the first time I’ve done this as well. I’m doing this because this is the community that raised me, and I want to give back to it.”
Beside an empty chair reserved for Lopez, Calvarese participated in the debate alongside Libertarian Party nominee Hannah Goodman, who said she wanted to rein in “pork belly spending,” and Frank Atwood, an Approval Voting Party candidate who said his only goal was to raise awareness of the alternative voting method.
“My wife has told me that if I win, she’ll divorce me, so I have no intentions of winning,” Atwood said.
Primary election ballots will be mailed to Colorado voters beginning June 3.
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