Libertarian Party congressional candidate Eric Joss dropped out of Colorado’s most competitive congressional race last week after his Republican opponent Gabe Evans pledged to abide by a set of principles, including, for example, “I will vote to always protect and uphold the right to bear arms. I will oppose all unconstitutional gun laws.”
Some political observers called the pledge so watered down as to be meaningless, giving Evans huge holes to justify any vote he might want to take in Congress.
But that’s not how Joss sees it. He believes the pledge will hold Evans accountable in tangible ways.
On the right to bear arms, Joss holds a libertarian position of opposition to all background checks for possession or purchase of firearms, and he believes the pledge’s Second Amendment plank would push Evans to vote against all background checks.
“Yes, most definitely,” replied Joss when asked if he thought Evans would vote against any type of background check.
The Evans campaign did not return an email seeking to know if Evans would vote against all gun background checks.
Joss also believes the FBI needs “serious oversight,” due to incidents relating to past Trump campaigns, and he hopes Evans’ pledge of support for “more accountability for federal intelligence agencies” will move Evans in his direction.
And if a vote to abolish the U.S. Department of Education came up, would Joss expect Evans to vote to shutter it, based on Evans’ pledge to “support fundamental reform” of the agency?
“I would hope that if it did come up for a vote, he would reach out and talk to me and other Libertarians and ask us what we thought — because the way we’re talking right now, this isn’t just a short-term thing to get me out of the race, but it’s a long-term thing to listen to a segment of the population,” said Joss, adding that he has “conversations going with them” via email, phone, and text that he hopes will continue.
“I’m not gonna turn this guy into a Libertarian overnight,” said Joss.
“He knows he’ll be held accountable because obviously every two years we have the option to run another candidate,” said Joss, emphasizing that his “wholehearted endorsement” of Evans is “conditional that he keeps his promises.”
Joss’s decision to drop out of the Congressional District 8 (CD8) race is significant because a Libertarian candidate in the same district two years ago netted 9,280 votes, which is significantly more than the 1,632 votes that separated the Democrat and the Republican in the race — and sent Yadira Caraveo to Washington. Arguably, the Libertarian candidate caused the Republican, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer (R-Weld), to lose. CD8 is expected to be the battleground for one of the most competitive U.S. House races in the country. Caraveo is the first representative to occupy the seat, which was created in Colorado after the 2020 U.S. Census.
Joss didn’t cite a specific action by Evans that would make him withdraw his support for Evans in the future, but he said his assessment would be based on Evans’ votes and whether he “kept open that line of communication with us.”
Joss says he’s proud that Evans agreed to “auditing the Federal Reserve” in his “two-year congressional plan.”
“He agreed to audit the Fed and look into ways we can reform it,” said Joss. “So that’s a step in the right direction.”
“I think that’s really important,” said Joss. “That’s something that needs to be looked at. Go back to the gold standard. I’m not enough of an economist or financial expert to say that’s practical, but it would be really nice if we could. Then we have money that’s backed up by something.”
Evans may already be leaning just a bit toward Joss, at least in terms of regulating the Fed, in light of what he told KOA radio’s Mandy Connell Sept. 4: “The money supply is controlled by things like the Federal Reserve. And we don’t have a good understanding at the congressional level of how the Federal Reserve is doing some of its internal business. We need to have policies like auditing the fed, but we also need to make sure that we’re taking the handcuffs off of our economy.”
Evans Wants to “Earn Votes”
“I know a lot of people are thinking [Evans] is just desperate to win; I didn’t get that impression,” said Joss. “I think it was more like he wants to earn votes. To me, there’s a difference.”
Joss, who’s a technical writer for a heavy equipment company, said the details of the pledge were hammered out among him, right-wing operative Brandon Wark, and Evans — after state Libertarian Party officials and the Evans campaign agreed to talk. Joss credits Wark for being the “go-between” and for putting in the “real effort” to get him and Evans “to start talking.”
In the end, the decision to drop out of the congressional race was his alone, Joss said.
