The single most competitive House seat in the country — and a rematch of the district’s whole two-election history.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE RACE
Colorado’s 8th District — created by an independent redistricting commission after the 2020 census, covering parts of Adams and Weld counties north of Denver — has never elected the same party twice. Democrat Yadira Caraveo won it by less than a point in 2022. Republican Gabe Evans flipped it back by an even thinner margin in 2024: 49.0% to 48.2%. Trump carried the district by less than 2 points that same year.
Major election forecasters currently rate the general a pure toss-up. As of June, Evans had raised $4.89 million to Rutinel’s $4.13 million — both sides are treating this as one of the most important seats in the country, because it might decide House control on its own.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MANNY RUTINEL (D) — THE ATTORNEY WHO PROMISED NOT TO TAKE CORPORATE PAC MONEY
Rutinel won the Democratic primary decisively — 61% to Shannon Bird’s 34% — despite Bird being a four-term state legislator and former Joint Budget Committee vice chair. Rutinel is an environmental attorney and former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers economist, born in the U.S. but raised by a single mother in the Dominican Republic until age six before the family settled in Florida, where he worked at McDonald’s in high school and gave plasma to help support his family.
His campaign centers on Social Security, Medicaid, and affordability. On the DCCC’s “Red to Blue” announcement, he specifically warned that Trump and Evans, backed by billionaire donors, plan to lay off half the Social Security workforce and shutter field offices — calling it “a backdoor cut that inflicts pain on seniors and people with disabilities.” At his primary victory party, he told supporters he has never and will never accept corporate PAC money — a direct contrast he’s drawing against Evans heading into the fall.
Voters at a Greeley farmers market interviewed by CPR described exactly the anxieties Rutinel is campaigning on: cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare; housing and food costs; and, for Latino voters and educators in the district, described fear in immigrant communities as a daily reality affecting their students and neighbors.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GABE EVANS (R) — THE INCUMBENT DEFENDING A KNIFE-EDGE SEAT
Evans is a former Arvada police officer and Army National Guard helicopter pilot who served in the Colorado legislature for one term before winning this seat in 2024. His background as a veteran and law enforcement officer is central to his campaign identity, and he’s framed himself as embodying “the beauty and responsibility of the American Dream” as a Colorado native.
What’s less discussed in his own materials: this is a seat he’s held for exactly one term, won by less than a single point, in a district that’s changed hands both times it’s existed. His fundraising lead over Rutinel is narrow, and Democrats’ top House super PAC has already reserved millions in ad spending specifically targeting this race.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHY THIS RACE MATTERS TO PROJECT ZERO
Republicans currently hold a razor-thin three-seat majority in the House. CO-8 is the definition of the seat that could flip that majority on its own — a district with no partisan loyalty, no incumbent advantage that’s ever survived a single reelection, and a candidate explicitly campaigning against corporate money in a cycle when that message is testing well nationally.
SCOREBOARD UPDATE: — Colorado’s 8th District. Status: Pure toss-up. General: November 3.
— Project Zero Club | projectzero.club