July 17, 2025 11:22 AM UTC

Fundraising Numbers for CO-08 (Q2, 2025)

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• by: Colorado Pols

The fundraising reports for Q2 are finally available for both state and federal campaigns. We also now have enough people running for various seats that we can actually compare some of those numbers. So, let’s do that…

We’ve taken a look already at the races for Governor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, and Secretary of State. Now we’re taking a peek at what should be the single most competitive race of 2026: The battle for congressional district eight.

NOTE: We’re sorting the numbers below according to cash-on-hand (COH) figures, because the “pump and dump” era of fundraising encourages some campaigns to tout fundraising totals that can be misleading if the campaign also spent an inordinate amount of money on fundraising consultants. What matters here is how much money a campaign has for operating expenses going forward.

Keep in mind that outside money from independent expenditures, PACs, etc. will likely dominate the total spending in this race by the last few months of 2026. But for now, these numbers give us an idea of which candidates are finding receptive audiences as they maneuver toward the June Primary Election.

CO-08

Congressman Gabe Evans (R-Ft. Lupton) is right where he should be given his stats as perhaps the most endangered incumbent Republican in the country; he’s raising good money and maintaining a small burn rate.

Fellow State Rep. Shannon Bird turned in the best overall fundraising quarter for a Democratic candidate, raising a solid $446,559 and keeping expenses down so that she ended the quarter with $373,182 in the bank.

Democratic State Rep. Manny Rutinel turned in a solid Q2, though he raised considerably less than the $1.2 million he reported in Q1. Of more concern for Rutinel is his unsustainable burn rate, which appears to be the result of paying a lot of money for online fundraising consultants that eat a large portion of what they kill (so to speak). Rutinel has raised $1.6 million in six months but only has about half of that total in the bank. Rutinel needs to find more sustainable fundraising sources.

Former Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo is in serious trouble, raising a fairly small amount of money but — of more concern — spending 57% of what she brought in for her campaign. Given that Caraveo has much higher name ID than any of the other Democrats in this district, as well as a deeper donor list from two previous congressional campaigns, her fundraising numbers should be much stronger. If Caraveo can’t turn things around in the next quarter, her campaign may be all but over.

State Treasurer Dave Young didn’t raise a lot of money, but he was also the latest candidate to enter the race and had less than a month to collect checks. He’ll need a strong Q3 to show that he can be competitive here.

As for Amie Baca-Oehlert…there’s no way to spin this into something nice. This is not a competitive campaign.