May 29, 2026 11:43 AM UTC

Anticlimactic CO-08 Dem Debate Deflates Blue-On-Blue Hype

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• by: Colorado Pols

Last night, the two Democratic candidates running for the nomination to take on America’s Most Vulnerable Incumbent™ Rep. Gabe Evans in November faced off in their first head-to-head debate of the newly narrowed race. The Democratic CO-08 primary has become fairly acrimonious down the stretch, with enthusiastic involvement by external political outfits who have taken sides in the race–including national lefty organizing groups like the Working Families Party and Indivisible, both of whom endorsed Manny Rutinel.

But as AP’s Colleen Slevin reports with help from the Colorado Sun, the hype over the alleged “stark choice” Democratic and unaffiliated primary voters face in this primary appears to overshoot reality:

The two Democrats vying for the chance to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District tried to find ways to attack each other at their first major debate Thursday but ended up agreeing on many major issues…

When it came to questions about whether Congress should raise the eligibility age for Social Security, both said no, and the federal minimum wage, both said yes. Both said they’d support a proposed state ballot initiative in November to impose a graduated income tax. And both said they would not support a federal fracking ban.

The candidates attempted to differentiate each other mostly on personality and politics, not policy. [Pols emphasis]

Axios’ John Frank explained the biggest substantial policy difference between the two candidates, legislation signed into law last year that would have placed added restrictions on cooperation with federal immigration agents–the effect of which appears to be exaggerated for maximum political utility against Rutinel’s opponent, former Rep. Shannon Bird:

State Rep. Manny Rutinel, 31, took the first shot in his opening remarks, attacking his rival Shannon Bird, 57, for a 2025 legislative vote “to allow police to cooperate with ICE and allow ICE to raid our schools and hospitals.”

Bird, a former state lawmaker from Westminster who resigned to run for Congress, countered, noting that [her vote against] the legislation did not allow federal immigration authorities to make arrests in schools or other sensitive areas. [Pols emphasis]

And although shrill attacks on Bird over her supposed shortcomings on immigration have dominated Rutinel’s campaign message, in reality there’s less of a difference on that issue between the two candidates than those attacks suggest:

[W]hen it comes to how the candidates would regulate ICE in Congress, the two largely agreed. Both said they would ban agents from wearing masks and using warrantless arrests and require them to use identification.

Once the objectively small distinctions between these two candidates are contextualized, there’s really only one consideration: which flavor of identity politics you prefer.

Rutinel pressed Bird on why Colorado’s most heavily Hispanic congressional district shouldn’t have a Latino representative in Congress. Bird didn’t directly respond but instead stressed that she had a deep understanding of what is now the 8th District after living in the area for nearly 25 years.

It’s an old truism in politics that the less there is to argue about, the more intense the argument becomes–a tendency that explains why primary elections between candidates with few meaningful differences are often some of the most bitterly fought races you’ll ever encounter. For the preponderance of issues that most voters in CO-08 care about, either Rutinel or Bird will deliver votes that represent Democratic primary voters. In terms of electability, both Democratic candidates are strong contenders to unseat Gabe Evans in November.

As we’ve said before, the biggest question for CO-08 primary voters is not which of these candidates is the “one true progressive,” who wouldn’t be a good fit for the state’s most evenly divided district anyway. With enough equivalence on the issues between the two Democrats to satisfy most voters, the question is, who is the best choice not just to win this seat in an expected Democratic wave this year, but to hold it for the long term?

We’re not here to answer that question. But that’s the real question voters need to be asking.