Nine years before he became the Democratic nominee for Colorado's 8th Congressional District, Manny Rutinel wrote online that he was eating for three dollars a day, completely vegan, and that meat may be costing people so much. Those 2017 posts, written when Rutinel was 22, are now central to a Republican effort to brand him as hostile to a district where agriculture generates billions of dollars a year and touches more than 2,000 farms.
The posts and Rutinel's broader history as an animal-rights advocate were detailed by Axios, which reported that Rutinel encouraged consumers to protest and speak out on behalf of animals in captivity, once posed shirtless, draped in a PETA banner, and wrote that it was possible to eat for even less by relying more on beans and grains. He also called animal agriculture an injustice and argued the industry fueled climate change, according to the outlet, which said his activism traced back to a documentary he watched in 1999 and continued through 2023. Rutinel declined Axios's request for an interview for that story.
Republicans have seized on that record, dubbing him Meatless Manny and calling him a radical activist, the outlet reported. In response, Rutinel has said the Reddit posts do not reflect his views today and that he has grown, and Axios notes he is no longer vegan.
A District Built on Livestock
The stakes of that rebranding effort are hard to overstate in CO-08. Weld County, the district's agricultural core, posted $2.38 billion in total farm sales in the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture, ranking first in Colorado and 11th nationally, with livestock and poultry accounting for 82 percent of that value, or roughly $1.95 billion, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Axios similarly reported that 79 percent of farms across the full 8th District are involved in sales of livestock, poultry, and other animal products.
Rutinel's activist past also included support for two Denver ballot measures in 2024 that would have banned fur sales and closed the city's lone slaughterhouse within city limits, per the same Axios account. Both measures failed at the polls: the slaughterhouse ban, Initiated Ordinance 309, was rejected by 63.75 percent of voters, according to The Colorado Sun, which reported the targeted facility was an employee-owned Superior Farms lamb-processing plant in Globeville handling roughly 1,500 lambs a day and accounting for 15 to 20 percent of total U.S. lamb slaughter capacity, employing about 160 workers. The fur-sales measure, Ordinance 308, was defeated by nearly 16 percentage points, with 57.97 percent voting against it, as reported by Westword.
From Activist CEO to State Lawmaker
Before entering the Colorado General Assembly, Rutinel co-founded and served as CEO of Climate Refarm, an organization that pushed carbon-offset proposals designed to incentivize farms to shift away from animal agriculture toward plant-based food production, according to the Environmental Law Reporter. He was appointed in 2023 to fill a vacant Colorado House seat representing Commerce City, per the same Axios reporting, and has since built a policy record that extends well beyond farm and food issues, including firearm-safety legislation requiring law enforcement agencies to register with the federal eTrace system to track crime guns, according to LegiStorm, which also noted he was named a 2024 Environmental Champion by Conservation Colorado.
Facing the agricultural backlash, Rutinel's campaign has said he would fight to reverse President Trump's tariffs that it says threaten farmers' and ranchers' livelihoods and raise grocery costs, and he has supported a bill allowing farmers to repair their own equipment, according to Axios. He has generally positioned himself as supporting farmers in the legislature, the outlet reported, part of an effort to reassure a district where the agricultural economy looms large over campaign politics.
A Toss-Up District With High Stakes
Rutinel enters the general election after decisively winning the Democratic primary, defeating former State Rep. Shannon Bird with 62.8 percent of the vote, 50,435 votes to 26,122, according to Ballotpedia. He now faces Republican incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans, whom Axios describes as the sitting U.S. representative for the district, in a seat that has flipped parties in consecutive elections, won by Democrat Yadira Caraveo in 2022 by 0.7 percentage points and by Evans in 2024 by 0.8 points.
Colorado's 8th District carries an EVEN rating on the Cook Partisan Voting Index and has the largest Hispanic population share of any congressional district in the state, at 38.5 percent of the adult population, spanning population centers including Commerce City, Thornton, and Greeley. Rutinel starts the general-election phase with roughly $600,000 in cash on hand after spending more than $3.7 million during his primary campaign against Bird, compared with more than $3.8 million held by Evans, per KUNC. Hoodline has previously reported on the cash gap facing Democrats in the race, as well as a Spanish-language ad campaign targeting Evans over Medicaid spending.
Evans, for his part, has faced his own scrutiny over past remarks. Axios reported he faced blowback over comments made at age 17 opposing same-sex marriage, including a 2009 statement that opposing same-sex marriage would have a terrible effect on society. Evans has said his views have changed and he does not support a ban on same-sex marriage today, according to the same reporting.
