Congressional race could be decided by less than 1% of vote

U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a Fort Lupton independent who caucuses with Republicans, is set to face Democratic candidate Manny Rutinel, who currently represents Colorado’s 32nd District in the state House. Evans won by a margin of less than 1% during the congressional elections in 2022 and 2024.

Whether Evans is reelected could help determine whether Republicans hold on to their razor-thin majority in the House. The GOP currently holds 218 seats, including Evans'. Democrats have 214. There are also two vacancies.

The minimum number needed for a majority is 218.

Interest in the race is high enough to attract nearly $11 million in outside spending. Republican-leaning groups, including the Trump-backed super PAC, No Going Back, have spent roughly $2 million more than Democratic groups. 

Evans, who ran against Yadira Caraveo in 2024, won by only 2,449 votes – amounting to a less than 1% victory.  

Evans went uncontested in the June Republican primary, and Rutinel won roughly 68% of the vote against two other Democratic candidates in that party's primary. 

The two candidates took to the debate stage last week in Berthoud, Colo., where they accused each other of being a “radical.”  

Evans started by claiming this race was about “common sense versus crazy,” and characterized his opponent as a progressive leftist. 

Meanwhile, Rutinel fired back, saying Evans was radical because of his continued support for Republicans’ taxing and spending packages. 

At one point, Rutinel questioned whether Evans regrets voting for the One Beautiful Bill Act, which aimed at providing tax policy and relief, among other measures. Congress passed it on July 4, 2025. 

“You’re kicking hundreds of thousands of Coloradans off of healthcare. Answer the question, ‘Do you regret backing the Big Beautiful Bill?’ ” Rutinel siad.

Rutinel’s campaign website states that he would oppose virtually any piece of legislation that “tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age …” 

Meanwhile, proponents of the Big Beautiful Bill defend the provisions that would cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid funding over the next 10 years. The cuts come with stricter eligibility requirements such as an increased mandatory number of hours worked each month or community service requirements for low-income adults. 

During the Biden administration, Medicaid spending was experiencing higher rates of fraud, which was demonstrated in a 2023 report from the House Oversight Committee. It found that improper Medicaid payments amounted to nearly $98.7 billion in the 2021 fiscal year alone. 

Rutinel was also highly critical of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, which Evans has supported in the past and most recently with his vote for the Save America Act. The legislation passed in the House but not the Senate. 

The Act would provide greater funds to immigration enforcement personnel and projects, as well as create stricter citizenship verification processes to prevent noncitizens from voting in American elections. 

“We need comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship for dreamers and those who have been there the longest," Rutinel said.

 He tapped into his personal familial background, explaining he came from the son of a single mom who immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic. 

Evans responded by saying that border control and immigration enforcement are “going after the bad guys” in order to reduce violent crime. He also blamed the increase of crime as a result of the Democratic leadership in Colorado. 

“We have to secure the border. We have to get the bad guys out of our community, and we have to work to fix the broken immigration system for the people that are trying to do things right,” Evans said. 

Rutinel was also very adamant about holding elected leaders accountable. “We need leaders that will hold accountable to anyone who breaks the law.”

Evans fired back, explaining that during his decade-long career in law enforcement, he arrested many criminals – most notably child abusers and sex offenders. He also used this moment to encourage the viewers to support law enforcement. 

“You got to support the people that are going out and putting their lives on the line to keep our communities safe," Evans said.

He further criticized the “defund-the-police” and “open-borders” policies as “radical.”

The two further disagreed on economic policy, with Evans going as far as to call his opponent a “radical job-killing candidate.” 

“You have the most radical job-killing candidate that Colorado has ever produced standing here on stage with me who wants to kill oil and gas, who wants to kill agriculture, who wants to take your kids away from you, and I'm fighting back against that level of craziness," Evans told Rutinel on the debate stage.

Evans also cited his own support of Trump’s “no tax on tips” or tax on overtime pay policy, which was effectively passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

But Rutinel responded that the bill made cuts in measures that substantially helped his family and many others across the nation. He recalled his family using food stamps and Medicaid when he was 10 years old.

Rutinel added that Colorado needs leaders who are going to lower the costs of food and gas, not raise them. 

“He is taking food out of the mouths of children," Rutinel said about Evans."He's taking healthcare from families so that his billionaire donors can get a third or fourth yacht."