Colorado’s newest representative acknowledges tightness of race in ‘swingy’ 8th district

COLORADO, USA — The new representative in Colorado’s newest congressional district – Republican Gabe Evans – stopped short of endorsing the mass deportation called for by President-elect Donald Trump on Monday.

But Evans also stopped short of saying he would oppose it.

Instead, he tacitly acknowledged that representing Colorado’s 8th Congressional District – where more than one in 10 residents is foreign born and 39% of the people who live there identify as Latino or Hispanic – will mean thinking carefully about his positions on some issues.

“My first priority when we talk about border and border security is making sure that we are aggressively targeting those individuals who are not only just illegally present in the country, but who are also committing other crimes, violent crimes – who are stealing, causing other different criminal events to happen in our community,” Evans said Monday in his first press conference after Democrat Yadira Caraveo conceded on Sunday.

Asked specifically whether he supports the call from Tom Homan, Trumps “border czar,” to deport entire families – even if some are in the country legally – Evans demurred.

“We know we have to get that border security there, but we know that we also have to be humane as we look at these situations here,” he said.

He also repeatedly called deporting criminals in the country illegally as his “first priority,” but stopped short of saying he would oppose Homan’s plan.

“I think that’s at least step three in the process,” he said. “Step one: Secure the border. Step two: We have to make sure that those violent criminals that are in our community are being held accountable.

After we’ve got those priorities done, then we can absolutely continue to have that conversation about what do we do with the millions of folks who are present illegally in the United States, but who aren’t committing crimes and who aren’t really causing massive problems in our society.”

He was also asked if he would support a plan that separates families.

“I’m not a big fan of separating families,” Evans said.

This is the reality in a district that is as “swingy” as they come – a district Caraveo, a Democrat, won by about 1,600 votes in 2022, and one Evans, a Republican, now leads by about 2,500 votes with some ballots still not counted.

He repeatedly mentioned his maternal grandfather – his “abuelito” – who came from Mexico and earned two purple hearts in World War II.

“I’m 50% Latino,” Evans said. “I’m 50% Hispanic. My mom is … a first generation American. And so we know that is the promise of the United States. We are the great melting pot.”

Evans said his connection with people across the political spectrum with him saying more than two-thirds of the mayors in the district supported his candidacy and the Libertarian candidate dropping out of the race, played key roles in his victory.

And as he tries to negotiate the political divide in his district, he said he would rely on a three-pronged metric.

“My faith guides me, follow the constitution and I listen to my constituents,” he said. “And so, in order, that is how I’m going to be making my decisions. For those times where, you know, the district or my own personal experience differs from something, then we’re gonna have to have those conversations.”