March 03, 2025 12:56 PM UTC

Democrats Bring the Pain Over Gabe Evans Voting to Gut Medicaid

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• by: Colorado Pols

We wrote earlier today about the day of reckoning coming for Republican Members of Congress in tough districts who supported a Republican budget proposal that seeks to decimate funding for Medicaid — something that one of every five Coloradans relies upon for health coverage and/or nursing home care.

As soon as Freshman Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Adams County) cast his vote on the House budget early last week, we were among many others predicting that this singular decision could make it impossible for Evans — among the most vulnerable Republican incumbents anywhere — to win re-election in CO-08 in 2026. Voting to take away health coverage for 1 in 5 residents of his northern metro congressional district — including 1 in 3 children — is not a policy position you can explain with some mealy-mouthed nonsense about government efficiency.

As Fox News reports today, Democrats aren’t waiting until 2026 to take this shot:

A group closely tied to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is spending millions of dollars on a new ad campaign against 23 lawmakers, accusing Republicans of trying to take away healthcare from senior citizens and children.

The ads, which begin running on Monday, accuse Republicans of “threatening healthcare for 37 million kids and kicking seniors out of nursing homes just to make billionaires like Elon Musk even richer.”…

…Mike Smith, president of HMP’s action arm House Majority Forward, linked the ads to House Republicans’ vote last week to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda via the budget reconciliation process.

“Last week, Republicans betrayed the American people – breaking their promise and paving the way to strip millions of men, women, and children of their health insurance,” Smith said. “We will make sure every American knows exactly who is responsible.” [Pols emphasis]

Among the 23 Republicans targeted in this ad campaign is Evans, who has been unapologetic about voting in favor of a Republican budget that will have to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid in order to meet its larger goals of extending tax breaks for millionaires.

Here’s that new spot:

NARRATOR: Gabe Evans was sent to Washington to cut costs. Instead, Evans just cast the deciding vote to set up cuts threatening health care to nearly 80 million Americans to cut another big check to billionaires…

…Cutting Medicaid and making healthcare more expensive so billionaires can pay less. Threatening health care for 37 million kids and kicking seniors out of nursing homes…just to make billionaires like Elon Musk even richer. It’s time to send Gabe Evans a message: Stand up for us, not billionaires.

Evans is clearly aware of the political peril he faces, which is why he has tried in recent days to spin the story into something about how Colorado is mismanaging Medicaid. As we wrote earlier:

No one supports “wasting money,” so it’s always a popular hobby horse to ride. And despite the benefits to everyone’s health that come from expanding health coverage, immigrants are ripe targets for demonization who Gabe Evans never misses the chance to vilify. But to justify the massive cuts to Medicaid funding Republicans voted for last week with these comparatively tiny amounts of “waste and abuse,” or even the politically riskier trying to ensure immigrant populations in Colorado can get preventative care that in the long run saves money, is a textbook case of throwing the baby out with the proverbial bathwater.

This is all fairly simple. Evans chose to support the wishes of House Speaker Mike Johnson instead of the concerns of the residents in his congressional district. That’s as good a reason as any for 2026 voters to choose to support someone not named Gabe Evans.