Pushing back on a Colorado Times Recorder story Monday based on an interview with Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans, a spokesperson for the critical 8th Congressional District (CD8) candidate’s campaign argued Evans has been very clear on the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by more than 7 million votes.
“You could easily point to other interviews where Gabe has acknowledged the results of the 2020 election,” Evans’ spokesperson Alan Philp wrote in an email. “I think he addressed that in his very first interview as a candidate. You leave the impression that he has questioned the legitimacy.”
In fact, on multiple occasions, Evans has questioned the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s fully vetted, legally challenged, and ultimately certified election in 2020 by alleging unproven election interference. Evans answered “No-ish” when asked if the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and later explained that it’s not a “yes-no” question. As for evidence of election interference, Evans repeatedly has pointed to Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop, which never revealed any crimes committed by his father, Joe Biden. Hunter Biden has pled guilty to tax and gun charges, and Joe Biden, who is not seeking reelection, has said he won’t pardon his son.
“Acknowledging the legitimacy of the 2020 election while acknowledging the election interference of the media, tech, intelligence officials, etc. (you can’t possibly argue that’s not what it was) are not mutually exclusive,” Philp wrote. “What happened in 2020 with the laptop, etc. was outrageous. Just totally outrageous. Biden is president. Gabe has said it. There was interference. No doubt about it.”
Trump, who has endorsed Evans as he takes on incumbent Democrat Yadira Caraveo in the Nov. 5 general election that could determine control of the U.S. House next year, once again doubled down on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. In his debate with Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, Trump expressed no regrets for the deadly Jan. 6 riot and said he has “so many facts and statistics” showing he won. He also called a recent podcast in which he claimed he lost by “a whisker” sarcastic.
Convicted of 34 felonies in New York for paying hush money to a porn star to cover up his affair with her ahead of the 2016 election, Trump is still facing federal felony charges related to his unofficial actions linked to the Jan. 6 insurrection that delayed the Electoral College count, threatened the life of his former vice president and injured and killed numerous police officers.
Asked about Evans’ ongoing support for Trump despite his oath in the U.S. Army to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, Philp wrote: “Jan. 6 was a disgrace, and I think Gabe has described it as such. But it took place AFTER the [2020] election.”
Philp did not respond to a follow-up email asking why such a disgrace wouldn’t then disqualify Trump as a candidate in the current election, given the former president’s refusal to adhere to the American tradition of peaceful transfer of power. Evans is also a former Arvada police officer.
Philp then questioned an omission in Monday’s story – an interview conducted with Evans at a sparsely attended campaign meet and greet far outside of CD8 in Basalt.
“You talk about [Evans’] opposition to Roe v. Wade. True, but why not mention that he’s against a federal abortion ban?” Philp wrote. “You don’t even need to search for that. It’s right on his website.”
U.S. House Democrats’ largest super PAC on Tuesday launched an ad attacking Evans for his opposition to abortion and reproductive rights.
Evidence cited in the ad and confirmed by journalists shows that Evans has stated that he opposes all abortions, even for pregnancies resulting from rape. Trump, during Tuesday’s debate, refused to say whether he would veto a national abortion ban if it crossed his desk, fueling national speculation he’ll back the extreme Project 2025 agenda aimed at further stripping away abortion rights, women’s healthcare, birth control and invitro fertilization.
Finally, Philp took issue with CTR’s characterization of Evans’ position on the mass deportation of undocumented residents that Trump, Project 2025 and Trump’s MAGA base are calling for if he’s reelected.
“On deportation, [Evans’] position has been much more nuanced than the declarative statements the Times-Recorder likes to use,” Philp wrote, without providing details.
In fact, on at least two occasions, Evans said he supports the mass deportation of millions of immigrants, as described in Trump’s widely discussed plan to do so.
In his interview on Friday in Basalt, Evans touched briefly on immigration issues by repeating false claims that Venezuelan gangs are overrunning Aurora. Asked about the chaos swirling around the Colorado Republican Party, with both Eli Bremmer and Dave Williams claiming to be the party chair and a judge set to hear the case next month, Evans called it a disagreement.
“That’s the beautiful thing about the Republican Party,” Evans said [Williams endorsed Evans’ primary opponent]. “The conservative viewpoint is that we respect individual liberty, we respect freedom of thought, and so of course we’re not all going to agree on things. But what we do all agree on is … all of those statistics that I rattled off to you earlier: we’re the number one state in the nation for cost-of-living increases. There is all the crime stuff. We’ve had the highest number of illegal immigrants come to Front Range, the Denver metro area specifically, really of any of the big cities in the nation. These are problems that are affecting people’s everyday lives. I mean, good lord, we’re making national news right now with a video of armed gunmen running through apartments.”
Several Venezuelan gang members have been arrested in Aurora but city officials and residents dispute their takeover of apartment buildings. Kyle Clark of 9News pushed back on Trump’s false characterization of the situation in the debate on Tuesday: “Donald Trump opens the debate falsely claiming that migrants are ‘taking over’ the ‘town’ of Aurora, Colorado. City leaders and Aurora Police have said a Venezuelan gang has not taken over apartment buildings, let alone the entire city of Aurora, population 400,000.”
Additionally, Colorado does not lead the nation in cost-of-living increases, crime rates are falling across the state, and New York City is by far the top destination for migrants in the United States, not Denver. Overall, migrant crossings at the U.S. southern border continue to plummet.
