A Democratic-aligned outside group has launched a 30-second Spanish-language television ad targeting Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans over his vote for the GOP's signature 2025 budget bill, opening a new front in what is already shaping up as one of the most expensive House races in the country. The ad, from House Majority Forward, urges viewers to ask Evans to reverse his position on Medicaid spending as he seeks a second term representing Colorado's 8th Congressional District.
The ad buy is part of a $15 million national reservation of TV and digital advertising that House Majority Forward has announced across 19 House districts, according to the Denver Gazette. Punchbowl's Ally Mutnick reported that the group reserved just under $200,000 for the initial buy targeting Evans, a six-figure investment that signals how seriously national Democrats are treating the district. The spot claims, citing the Kaiser Family Foundation and state healthcare agencies, that as many as 150,000 Colorado families could lose healthcare coverage under legislation Evans supported.
Colorado's 8th District covers parts of Adams, Larimer and Weld counties, stretching from the suburbs north of Denver to Greeley, and it holds the state's largest share of Hispanic residents. That demographic reality is central to the ad strategy: 2024 Census Bureau data put the district's Hispanic population at 38.5%, the highest concentration of any congressional district in Colorado, making Spanish-language outreach a priority for both parties chasing the seat's roughly 44% share of unaffiliated voters.
A Seat Defined by Razor-Thin Margins
The 8th District has never known a comfortable election. Created after the 2020 Census, it held its first election in 2022, when Democrat Yadira Caraveo defeated Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer by just 0.7 percentage points. Evans then unseated Caraveo in November 2024, winning by a margin of 48.95% to 48.22% — fewer than 2,600 votes out of more than 330,000 cast, according to LegiStorm. Both of the district's general elections have now been decided by under a single percentage point, and the Cook Political Report rates the seat's Partisan Voting Index as EVEN, one of only seven House districts nationwide to carry that perfectly balanced designation.
Evans' challenger this fall is state Rep. Manny Rutinel, a Democrat from Commerce City who defeated former state Rep. Shannon Bird by 30 percentage points in the June 30 Democratic primary, as reported by Colorado Politics. Rutinel previously worked as an economist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and as an environmental attorney for Earthjustice after graduating from Yale Law School. Hoodline previously reported that Evans held a significant cash advantage while Democrats brawled over their nomination earlier this year.
Fundraising Race Nearly Even, Too
As of June 10 campaign finance filings, Evans had raised $4.89 million for his reelection bid, while Rutinel had raised $4.13 million, according to Ballotpedia. On July 9, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee formally added Rutinel to its Red to Blue program, providing strategic and fundraising support that reflects national Democrats' view of the seat as a top-tier pickup opportunity. Combined candidate fundraising has already topped $9 million, and outside groups have reserved more than $14 million in fall advertising, underscoring how central CO-08 has become to the battle for House control.
Evans brings his own biography to the race, having spent 12 years in the U.S. Army and Colorado Army National Guard as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot, reaching the rank of Captain, and 10 years as an officer and lieutenant with the Arvada Police Department before entering politics. That record has anchored his campaign messaging and his legislative focus on public safety.
Dueling Claims Over Medicaid
The fight over Medicaid sits at the center of the ad war. Evans voted for the Republican-led 2025 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the Associated Press reported is projected to slow Medicaid's growth by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade through new work requirements and eligibility rules, according to the Denver Gazette's reporting. Republicans, including the party itself, counter that the law actually increases overall Medicaid spending by 47% over the next decade rather than cutting it, framing the changes as curbing waste rather than access.
Christian Martinez, responding to the new ad, said Rutinel's agenda is out of touch with hardworking Coloradans and argued that Evans has worked to strengthen Medicaid for the most vulnerable. Martinez added that Hispanics in Colorado are not pawns in what he called the Democrats' recycled, cynical fear campaign. The National Republican Congressional Committee separately dismissed the ad as baseless fearmongering.
House Majority Forward says it will run the ad through August, timed ahead of Colorado's mail-ballot schedule. Colorado voters will receive their ballots on October 2, and must return them to county clerks by November 3. The district's broader significance was reinforced this month when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Colorado's 3rd and 4th districts to its national list of seats in play alongside the 8th and 5th, according to The Colorado Sun, signaling a statewide Democratic push against every Republican-held House seat in Colorado this cycle.
