November 05, 2025 10:53 AM UTC

After Last Night's Democratic Triumph, Gabe Evans' New Name Is Mark

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the reckoning following yesterday’s momentous off-year elections in which Democrats triumphed at all levels of the ballot in contests large and small across the country in a broader referendum against the first chaotic months of the second Donald Trump presidency gets underway today, there is perhaps no Republican in the state of Colorado feeling the heat from last night’s sea change more than America’s Most Vulnerable Incumbent™ Rep. Gabe Evans.

To underscore the point, yesterday Roll Call released their list of the top ten most vulnerable incumbents going into the 2026 midterms, in which Rep. Evans came in third overall–nonetheless the most vulnerable incumbent Republican:

Evans is seeking a second term in Colorado’s most competitive district, which reaches from the northern fringe of the Denver metro area to Fort Lupton and Greeley. Several Democrats are seeking to defeat him, including state Reps. Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird, state Treasurer Dave Young and Marine veteran Evan Munsing. Former Rep. Yadira Caraveo, who held the seat for a single term before Evans ousted her in 2024, briefly launched, then dropped, a comeback bid. Evans had nearly $2 million in his campaign account at the start of October, far more than any of the Democrats in the race.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) trumpeted this new assessment of Evans’ vulnerability in their release:

New rankings from Roll Call confirm what we already know: Gabe Evans is the most vulnerable Republican in the country.

Roll Call listed Evans as the third most vulnerable House member overall, first among Republicans. This ranking echoes analysis from National Journal, which ranked Evans the most vulnerable sitting lawmaker in the House, regardless of party.

Evans’ toxic agenda isn’t helping his re-election chances. Recent polling has Evans underwater in his toss-up district, with more voters having an “unfavorable” opinion of Evans than a “favorable” one. The survey – conducted before Evans voted for the largest Medicaid cuts in history – showed nearly 2 in 3 voters in CO-08 say they’re less likely to vote for a candidate who voted to cut Medicaid…

Says DCCC spox Lindsay Reilly:

“Gabe Evans sealed his political fate when he voted to gut Coloradans’ health care to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. He might as well start packing up his DC office now.” [Pols emphasis]

It’s necessary to throw a caution flag on this understandably rosy assessment from Democrats, since we are talking about the most closely divided congressional district in Colorado if not the whole country, and the margin has been close enough in both contests for the seat so far that neither side can afford to take anything for granted. We will say that the ongoing winnowing of the Democratic primary field down to the most viable competitors is a healthy process. This race will be one of the biggest pickup opportunities for Democrats in the midterms, but this swing district was simply not drawn to support an ideologically polarizing candidate on either side.

Which is exactly what Gabe Evans has turned out to be, a hard-right misfit in a district that needs a mainstream unifier in the Ed Perlmutter mold to take the seat out of competition in the long term. Evans’ dogmatic fealty to Donald Trump has made him much more vulnerable to the voter backlash against Trump that made itself apparent last night than, say, the at least rhetorically more moderate Jeff Hurd would be in the same district.

Gabe Evans is checking all the boxes to end his political career as a one-term congressman.