As thousands of anti-Trump protesters gathered in Greeley, Denver, and elsewhere for “No Kings” rallies, U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans stood in front of hundreds of fellow Republicans in a Brighton church, boasted about being the “two-time Donald Trump-endorsed candidate,” and asked them to choose him as the GOP candidate for Colorado’s most competitive congressional district, located north of Denver.
“The president likes a fighter,” Evans told the crowd. “The president likes a winner. That’s why I’m honored to be the two-time Donald Trump-endorsed candidate, in 2024 and 2026.”
About an hour later, 226 delegates from Adams, Larimer, and Weld Counties selected Evans as the GOP nominee over his sole competitor, oil-and-gas worker Adam DeRito, by a 193 – 33 margin.
That means DeRito got 15% of the vote, half the percentage he needed to advance to the Republican primary in June.
Since no other Republicans besides Evans collected signatures to get on the June primary ballot, Evans will be the only candidate in the GOP primary.
He has secured the GOP slot in November’s general election against the Democratic CD8 nominee, likely to be either former state Rep. Shannon Bird of Westminster or state Rep. Manny Rutinel of Commerce City.
After Evans’ acceptance speech, DeRito wished his opponent the “best of luck” and pledged to support the Republican Party and the oil-and-gas industry.
DeRito later told the Colorado Times Recorder that the approximately 60 delegates who did not show up at the assembly would have likely voted for him, and he accused “people who support Gabe” of calling them and talking them out of attending.
“It’s planned opposition,” he said.
Asked what he thought was Evans’ biggest obstacle in defending his seat, DeRito said it was Evans’ own lack of “authenticity,” which he’s lost because he’s done so little for his district, he said.
“I fully anticipate Gabe Evans losing,” said DeRito, “especially after talking to so many people in the district. I can’t find a single person in the wild who supports him.”
Carl Hoopes, the former vice chair of the GOP 8th Congressional District, introduced Evans and implored the crowd to vote “overwhelmingly” for him so the incumbent wouldn’t have to spend time and money battling against DeRito in a primary. In 2024, Evans was forced to spend $500,000 to defeat his primary opponent, said Hoopes, referring to former state Rep. Janak Joshi, who netted just over 30% of the votes at the 2024 CD8 assembly, forcing a primary battle that Evans easily won.
“We need to give Gabe the overwhelming support so he doesn’t have to waste thousands of hours of volunteer time and over half a million dollars,” said Hoopes.
Few political observers gave Derito much of a chance against the Trump-endorsed Evans. The real battle for Evans comes in November, when he will likely get less traction from voters on the issues that he ran on in 2024: immigration and crime. Instead of leaning in against Biden, Evans will have to navigate Trump’s actions as president — which appear now to be repelling voters from Republicans across the country. The margin for error for Evans is small, given that he won by fewer than 2,500 votes in 2024 over Democrat Yadira Caraveo.
After the results of today’s election were announced, Evans thanked his supporters, saying he’d talked to many delegates and acknowledged that “we’re not going to agree on everything,” but he promised to do “his absolute best to explain to you why I voted the way I voted and why I did whatever I did.”
“So please reach out to me, to my staff and we will have that conversation, because that’s what we do as Republicans,” he told the crowd. “We are the party of free thoughts.”
After the event, Evans declined to answer questions from the Colorado Times Recorder, saying he had to talk to “some other folks.”
“I’m not done fighting,” Evans told the crowd. “We’re going to fight back. We are going to make sure that we hold this seat. We must hold this seat. We have a one-seat majority right now in the United States House of Representatives. This is the only seat in the country that we flipped in a blue state in 2024.”
“We are going to give the president four years, not two,” he said.
