February 23, 2026 01:20 PM UTC

Hey Gabe: Why Can't You Be More Like Jeff Hurd?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Colorado’s Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd (R-Grand Junction) and Gabe Evans (R-Ft. Lupton) are first-term Republicans representing very different congressional districts. Their re-election strategies for 2026 are also quite opposite…but not in any sort of logical sense.

Hurd represents the third congressional district (Western Slope, Southern Colorado), which has been a reliably-Republican area for most of the last several decades. Republican Donald Trump carried CO-03 by about 10 points in 2024 and eight points in 2020.

Evans represents the eighth congressional district (Northern Metro Area), which is about as close to a pure “toss up” district as you can find anywhere in the country (and certainly in Colorado). Trump carried CO-08 by less than two percentage points in 2024; Democrat Joe Biden won the same district by 5 points in 2020.

Yet when you observe how Hurd and Evans are carrying themselves politically, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they had switched districts (or bodies).

As we noted over the weekend, a reeling President Trump withdrew his endorsement of Hurd after the Supreme Court rejecting his authority to issue random tariff increases around the world. Earlier this month, Hurd was one of six Republicans to vote in favor of a resolution rejecting Trump’s tariffs on goods from Canada. As The New York Times reported on Saturday:

Mr. Hurd, a former lawyer, has been outspoken in opposition to the president’s sweeping tariffs, which he has said have directly harmed agricultural and steel producers in his district. He has also been among the few Republicans who have pushed back on Mr. Trump’s unilateral tariffs on constitutional grounds. After the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Mr. Trump had exceeded his authority when he imposed the tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner, Mr. Hurd said in a post on social media that the ruling “underscores the need for Congress to play its proper role in trade policy.”

That position appears to have enraged Mr. Trump, who said in his own post on Saturday Mr. Hurd “is more interested in protecting Foreign Countries that have been ripping us off for decades than he is the United States of America.”…

…The vote on the Canada tariffs was the first opportunity for House members to formally register a position on Mr. Trump’s trade policies, after Republican leaders blocked such a vote for nearly a year. But with the president demanding loyalty on the issue, several Republicans facing competitive re-election races, including two other Coloradans, Representatives Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans, voted against canceling the tariffs.

Voting against Trump’s tariffs on Canada made sense for Hurd, who explained his decision to Colorado Public Radio:

I’ve heard a lot from our farmers, agricultural producers, manufacturers of all sizes across the district that these tariffs are not good for Colorado’s 3rd District. And the Constitution is clear and it’s in the best interest of my district. And for me, that made the vote the right vote, and I stand by it.

A similar vote would have been wise for Evans and Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Jeff Crank — both of whom are facing difficult re-election campaigns — but Evans and Crank have been unwilling to remove their respective lips from Trump’s rear end on any issue.

As John Aguilar explained for The Denver Post over the weekend, Evans should have split with Trump on his disastrous tariff policies:

For Evans, Erin Covey [of the Cook Political Report] thinks he had a “potentially missed opportunity to separate himself from the president.” He chose not to join fellow Colorado Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, who — along with five GOP House members — voted this month to rescind the emergency declaration that Trump has used as the basis for imposing tariffs on Canada.

Evans said that while tariffs are challenging for the agriculture and ranching sectors, lopsided trade arrangements that hurt American producers are no better.

“So yeah, long term, big picture: I’m totally a free trade guy, but free trade has to be fair trade,” he said. [Pols emphasis]

And that’s Gabe Evans in a nutshell: He’s a YUGE supporter of free trade, expect for when he’s not.

This quote is similar to the equivocation Evans recently demonstrated on the subject of ICE murdering Americans in Minnesota:

When Gabe Evans uses phrases such as “big picture” or “holistic conversation,” he’s really talking about President Trump.

I’m a free trade guy as long as President Trump is a free trade guy. 

Federal law enforcement officers should only kill American citizens in support of President Trump’s policies. 

President Trump’s newfound opposition to Jeff Hurd is unlikely to change the outcome of the June Primary in CO-03. What it does do is create big trouble for Gabe Evans (and Jeff Crank). Hurd is proving that you can represent the needs of your district even if it means standing up to the Big Orange Guy in the White House.

For the rest of 2026, voters in CO-08 are going to sound like Gabe Evans’s disappointed mother: Why can’t you be more like that nice boy Jeff Hurd?