Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo of Thornton, left, faces a challenge from Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton in Colorado’s tossup 8th Congressional District race. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
The candidates vying for Colorado’s most competitive congressional seat squared off Tuesday night in a brisk 28-minute debate focused on immigration, abortion and the cost of living.
Incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a pediatrician and former state legislator who was narrowly elected to represent the newly created 8th Congressional District in 2022, faces a challenge from Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans, an Army veteran and former police officer. The 8th District, drawn by a nonpartisan committee during the state’s 2021 redistricting process, includes both Democratic-leaning suburbs north of Denver and more conservative rural areas in southern Weld County.
After being elected to the seat two years ago by a margin of less than one percentage point, Caraveo has walked a tightrope in the House of Representatives, often irking rank-and-file Democrats by voting with the chamber’s narrow Republican majority even as GOP campaign groups made flipping the toss-up 8th District one of their top 2024 targets.
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“I have made sure that that I am representing the 8th Congressional District in a way that my constituents would be proud of,” Caraveo said, “and in a way that is in keeping with having been raised as the child of a construction worker, a child of immigrants and somebody who has been able to live out my dream, my American dream.”
Evans, a first-term state lawmaker from Fort Lupton, coasted to victory in the 8th District’s Republican primary thanks to an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. During Tuesday’s debate, which was hosted by 9News, he echoed much of the GOP presidential nominee’s harsh rhetoric on crime and immigration, blaming Caraveo and other Democrats for “policies that allow fentanyl to flow into our communities” and accusing them of seeking to “defund law enforcement.”
“I’m a cop, I’m a soldier, a husband, a father, a grandson of immigrants,” Evans said. “I served overseas in a combat zone. I know how to fix these things. I’ve done it down at the state Legislature, and I look forward to doing it in Congress.”
Trump has pledged that on the first day of his second presidential term he would “begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” which he says would result in the deportation of over 20 million people. When previously asked about Trump’s plans to “deport them all,” Evans has affirmed his support — “yeah, you go back and you wait in line, the way everybody else does,” he told moderators in a June primary debate — but avoided answering the question directly on Tuesday night.
“Once we start to enforce the laws, then I think what you’ll see happen is those folks who have cut in the line will step back into the place in line that they should have been in all along,” Evans said.
Evans also didn’t answer when asked repeatedly about Trump’s racist rhetoric about immigrants, including the former president’s comments about immigrants who have “bad genes” and are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
“I’ve always condemned any sort of racist statements,” Evans said.
“Are you willing to say that Donald Trump’s statements are racist?” asked moderator Kyle Clark.
“I’ve always condemned racist statements,” Evans repeated.
Caraveo’s record
Caraveo has frequently been among a group of moderate Democrats crossing the aisle to back legislation advanced by the U.S. House’s Republican majority, especially on issues like immigration and crime. Her voting record in the 118th Congress has been by far the most conservative of Colorado’s five House Democrats, according to VoteView, a database of congressional roll call votes maintained by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles.
She especially angered many fellow Democrats with her vote in favor of a GOP-backed resolution condemning Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on immigration in late July, just days after Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
During her two terms in the Colorado state House representing Thornton, Caraveo was widely viewed as within her party’s liberal mainstream. Evans has seized on a 2021 letter, signed by Caraveo and more than 700 other state and local Democratic officials, calling on the Biden administration and Congress to pass progressive immigration reform and “divest from immigration enforcement agencies like (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and (the Customs and Border Patrol).”
Caraveo said during Thursday’s debate that her positions on immigration had changed because of a “crisis that both parties have set up and not offered solutions for.” She also said that her more conservative voting record in Congress reflected what she called a “responsibility to portray the opinions of my constituents” in a “very evenly divided” district.
“My constituents do not believe that, and so I would vote against that,” Caraveo said in reference to her 2021 call for the Biden administration to “divest” from ICE and CBP.
“Is it still your position?” Clark asked. “Do you still believe that that’s the right thing to do?”
“My job is to represent the 8th Congressional District, and that is what I’m doing every time that I vote,” she replied.
Abortion rights
Republicans have held a narrow majority in the House since the 2022 midterms, which they’ve used to stonewall Biden’s legislative agenda while targeting his administration with a spree of investigations and impeachment inquiries.
Election analysts expect the battle for control of the chamber to be another close contest in 2024, with either party eking out a small majority through victories in a handful of toss-up districts like Colorado’s 8th. Two recent polls of the race have shown Caraveo and Evans in a statistical dead heat.
Caraveo has emphasized her support for abortion rights and a federal law codifying Roe v. Wade, and criticized Evans over a 2022 candidate questionnaire in which he indicated he supported banning abortion without exceptions for rape and incest.
“As a doctor, as somebody who has been in clinics talking to women about this incredibly tough choice, that is the end-all and be-all of what I think abortion law should be,” Caraveo said. “It’s between a woman and her doctor, not between Gabe Evans being in your exam room and telling your doctor what to do.”
Evans said the 2022 response to what he called “check-box survey” didn’t reflect his full views on the issue. He said he supports exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother and reiterated that he would oppose a national abortion ban in Congress.
Moderators raised the issue of Evans’ ties to Heritage Defense, a lobbying and legal advocacy group that defends the rights of Christian parents who choose to home-school their children. On its website, the group says it “believes that parents have a right and a duty to exercise reasonable, loving, appropriate corporal punishment relating to the discipline and instruction of their children when Scripture indicates such discipline is proper.” Evans also voted against a 2023 bill passed by the state Legislature that banned corporal punishment in public schools.
Evans did not answer directly when asked twice about when he believed it was appropriate to hit children in school, instead pivoting to his experience as a part-time school resource officer while working for the Arvada Police Department.
“Tonight Gabe Evans suggested it is acceptable to hit kids in public schools,” Caraveo wrote on X following the debate. “His extreme agenda is too dangerous for kids in Colorado.”
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