May 06, 2026 10:24 AM UTC

Democratic CD-8 Primary A Mail vs. Digital Case Study

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• by: Colorado Pols

Of all the Democratic primary contests shaping up for the June 30th election, the high-drama slugfest between Democratic state lawmakers Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird, the latter of whom retired from the legislature to devote herself fully to running for Congress, is the most competitive, and though Rutinel has enjoyed a consistent lead in fundraising, Bird is campaigning hard with her own substantial base of support. The winner of this primary is the immediate front-runner in the general election, with incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans considered by most observers to be a political dead man walking.

Voters in the district are reportedly seeing both candidates’ names a great deal as the primary election approaches, but the delivery for the two campaigns’ message looks very different. Both candidates are on TV, but Rutinel has also invested heavily in digital ads running across major media and social media properties. Rutinel is definitely the candidate “going negative” in this race, directly attacking Bird on the issue of immigration in the majority of these ads. If you Google “Gabe Evans” from within the boundaries of CO-08, you can see that Rutinel’s campaign has co-opted Evans’ name to go after Bird:

Rutinel’s campaign has settled on immigration and the Trump administration’s excesses as the message to dispatch both Shannon Bird and Gabe Evans, and it could certainly prevail in the present climate. The one caution we would offer is that in focusing so heavily on an opponent whose name ID isn’t much better than one’s own, there’s a risk of inadvertently elevating their profile with your own resources. But in the event this message prevails in the primary, no one will call it unexpected.

By contrast, Bird’s campaign has reportedly dominated the mailboxes of Democratic primary voters, with an equally saturative direct mail program:

That’s a lot of glossy color! Rutinel is also reportedly getting help from outside committees like the Latino Victory Fund on direct mail, but Bird’s campaign has clearly made this “old school” method central to their outreach. The differing tactics utilized by these candidates present an interesting case study opportunity to evaluate their relative effectiveness. We wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the value of old-fashioned mail pieces in an all-mail ballot state. But if you’re as terminally online as we are, Rutinel is the name you’ll see popping up too often to be a coincidence.

Rutinel picked up early momentum in this race with energetic retail campaigning and online buzz that his campaign then effectively converted to dollars raised. Now Rutinel is investing that money where he believes the voters are. Our purpose today is not to wade into the acrimonious issue debate between these two candidates, but to consider the differing strategies at work in these campaigns, and how they reach primary voters who will decide the question.

The older we get, the less inclined we are to dismiss the tried and true.