ICYMI: NYT — Republican Voters in CO-08 Are Turning to Manny Rutinel Over Trump and Evans’ Immigration Crackdown

WELD COUNTY, CO–A new New York Times report from Colorado's Eighth Congressional District reveals that Gabe Evans' embrace of Trump’s overly aggressive immigration crackdown and a massive new ICE detention center on the district's doorstep could further doom his re-election chances. Multiple voters who backed Republicans in 2024 told the Times that they will vote for Manny Rutinel this November because Evans’ and Trump’s crackdown has gone “too far.”

The reporting captures why this district is in play:

• Republican voters are crossing over. As reported in the New York Times, “Diana and Ernesto Cruz, who live in nearby Fort Lupton, Colo., voted Republican in 2024 after being fed up with inflation and scenes of chaos along the southern border under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But they said Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown had gone too far, and they did not want an ICE detention center down the road. They are planning to vote for Mr. Rutinel in November. “There are more important things,” Mr. Cruz said on Wednesday, as he parked his big-rig truck outside the couple’s American flag-draped home.”
• Evans owns this facility — and won't talk about it. The detention center sits on the border of Evans' heavily Latino district. He's expressed support for centers like it; his office declined the Times’ request to discuss it.
• Constituents are fired up. Months of protests, a lawsuit over zoning and strain on local water, roads, and emergency services, and packed town meetings expose Coloradans’ frustrations in a district Evans won by less than a percentage point.

Evans is already vulnerable because he broke his promise to lower costs. Evans is responsible for:

• Tariffs that raise the price of everything. Evans has repeatedly voted to protect Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs that are raising prices on families and small businesses.
• An Iran war that is jacking up gas, diesel, and fertilizer prices. Thanks to Evans’ War in Iran, Colorado gas has topped $4.40 a gallon, up more than a dollar in a year, while diesel and fertilizer prices – which are essential for Colorado farmers – continue to climb. Evans is a staunch defender of the war and told Coloradans to just wait for prices to come down.
• Higher health care costs and gutted coverage. After calling health care his top priority, one of Evans's first votes of 2026 was against restoring the tax credits that keep insurance premiums down. Evans also cast a key vote to gut Medicaid, a program nearly 1 in 4 people – including half of all kids – in the Eighth District rely on.