February 26, 2025 11:35 AM UTC

House Budget Vote that Guts Medicaid Also Likely Ends Career of Rep. Gabe Evans

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• by: Colorado Pols

Late on Tuesday evening, the House of Representatives narrowly approved a budget proposal that would drastically cut critical services, such as Medicaid, in order to pay for President Trump’s promised tax cuts for the rich.

As The Washington Post reports:

House Republicans narrowly approved a framework Tuesday for President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, setting off a sprint with the Senate to reshape the tax code, implement strict new immigration policy, drill for new energy resources and spend billions on national defense.

The bill, which passed 217-215, would allow Congress’s GOP majorities to bypass a Democratic Senate filibuster through what’s known as the budget reconciliation process, but Republicans still face significant challenges before they can pass what Trump has taken to calling his “big, beautiful bill.” The House and Senate must agree on competing approaches, even though both chambers have now passed their own versions of the legislation.

All Republicans in Colorado’s congressional delegation (Reps. Jeff Hurd, Lauren Boebert, Gabe Evans, and Jeff Crank) voted in favor of the budget resolution, with all Democrats casting a “NO” vote. Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen (D-Jefferson County) flew to Washington D.C. with her newborn son just to make sure she could cast a vote in opposition to a plan that will likely decimate Medicaid funding that supports 1.3 million Coloradans.

As 9News explains, Tuesday’s vote is particularly frightening for residents in two Congressional districts represented by Republicans:

If Republicans cut Medicaid, the two congressional districts that stand to lose the most in Colorado are represented by those Republicans: Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd.

As freshmen Congressmen Evans and Hurd got to know their districts, one thing they surely got to know is how many of their constituents rely on Medicaid for health coverage.

According to the Congressional District Health Dashboard from NYU Langone Health, nearly 30% of Hurd’s constituents on the Western Slope and in southern Colorado are on Medicaid, the most of any congressional district in the state.

Evans’ district, from Denver’s northern suburbs to Weld County, has 25% of the population on Medicaid, the second most.

Hurd represents a district in CO-03 that is much more favorable for Republicans, but he’s still going to have to explain this vote if he hopes to be re-elected in 2026. Evans is in a much different situation as one of the most vulnerable GOP incumbents in 2026. As we noted earlier this week, Evans doesn’t seem to be particularly conflicted about his responsibilities to his district in Colorado versus his blood oath to House Speaker Mike Johnson and President Trump…nevermind that 1 in 5 residents of CO-08 rely on Medicaid/CHIP funding — including 1 in 3 children in the district.

Evans tried to justify his terrible vote with a goofy walk-and-talk video posted to social media channels that was immediately debunked by Caitlyn Kim of Colorado Public Radio.

Republican leadership is well aware of the political peril that faces members running in tough districts amid all of these cuts; as NBC News reports, GOP leaders are urging members to stop holding town hall meetings altogether because of the blowback they are already receiving. Evans hasn’t even bothered to try to hold a town hall meeting of his own, so there won’t be anything to cancel in CO-08.

Evans and his staff seem to think that posting vacuous videos online will insulate him in 2026 from the wrath of voters whose lives will be upended should House Republicans succeed in cutting off funding for health care and food/nutrition programs for children. But what Evans is really doing is demonstrating that he is nothing more than a rubber stamp for a Republican agenda that seems utterly indifferent to the needs of everyday Americans. Evans hasn’t even been in Congress for two months, and he’s already handing Democrats everything they need to defeat him in 2026.

Gabe Evans just voted to take healthcare away from ONE-THIRD of all children in his congressional district and more than 126,000 CO-08 residents in total. Nothing else he says or does in the next 21 months will wipe that ledger clean.