Republican Gabe Evans overtakes Rep. Yadira Caraveo for first time in Colorado's 8th District race as ballot count continues

DENVER — The race for Congress between U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo and Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans tipped upside down Friday evening, with the lead switching to Evans for the first time, according to newly updated results.

But three days after the election in the 8th Congressional District, there were still thousands of ballots outstanding in Adams County, which has been favoring Caraveo by nearly 12 percentage points. As of 6:19 p.m. Mountain time, Evans held a 2,529-vote lead over Caraveo — or a 49% to 48.2% edge — out of 311,026 ballots tallied.

Adams County Clerk Josh Zygielbaum said Friday the county’s elections office had more than 20,000 ballots to process, but inclement weather stopped the counting. He said his employees would resume tallying on Saturday and “work through the weekend.”

Weld County added thousands of completed ballots to the overall tally late Friday, giving Evans a big boost. He leads Caraveo by nearly 20 percentage points in the red-leaning county.

Caraveo’s campaign manager, Mary Alice Blackstock, issued a statement Friday afternoon saying “we are optimistic that Congresswoman Caraveo is in a strong position for reelection and poised to serve a second term.”

However, she cautioned that determining a winner may “take several days,” given the outstanding ballots in the race.

Evans’ campaign spokesman Alan Philp was equally sanguine about the Republican’s chances, saying “with late ballots trending toward Gabe and with tens of thousands of uncounted ballots remaining across the district, we are confident that Gabe will win.”

The race in Colorado’s ultracompetitive district could help determine control of next year’s Congress. It has been a grueling affair, with big-money backing and pointed campaign ads blanketing the airwaves for weeks.

In its maiden election in 2022, the district was won by Caraveo by just over 1,600 votes out of more than 236,000 ballots cast. It was listed by political prognosticators as one of 2024’s closest House contests.

Caraveo, a pediatrician and former state lawmaker, has performed appreciably better in Adams County than Evans, while the former Army vet and police officer has done better than his opponent among Weld County voters.

The 8th Congressional District sweeps across Denver’s northern suburbs and covers rural sections of Adams and Weld counties as well, along with a small slice of Larimer County. It is the most heavily Latino congressional district in Colorado, with around one in four residents identifying that way.

That fact helped push Caraveo, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, past state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer in 2022. This cycle, however, she faced a Republican foe who also has Latino roots, complicating that picture.

In fact, an exit poll of Latino voters this week found that Caraveo lost substantial support from the demographic compared to two years ago. In her first campaign in 2022, she won about 75% of the Latino vote; this year, it was about 56%, according to the polls.

Pollster Gabe Sanchez, of BSP Research, chalked it up to both major parties fielding Latino candidates.

“Whenever Latinos see two candidates on the ballot, they essentially split the ballot between those Latino candidates,” Sanchez said. “... By running a co-Latino on the Republican side, they were basically able to eat into that advantage.”

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(Denver Post staff writer Nick Coltrain contributed to this story.)

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