U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO) will face a Libertarian challenger this November in his run for reelection in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District (CD8), one of the closest-watched U.S. House races in the country, after David Wood was nominated at the 2026 Libertarian Party Convention on Saturday.
After the Republican Barb Kirkmeyer lost to the Democrat Yadira Caraveo in the district in 2022 by fewer votes than the Libertarian candidate received, Evans signed the Libertarians’ controversial ‘Liberty Pledge’ during his 2024 race to keep a Libertarian off the 2024 ballot and prevent the party from playing a spoiler role.
Evans beat the incumbent Caraveo by 2,449 votes in 2024, after the Libertarian candidate bowed out of the race. There are currently 4,151 registered Libertarians in District 8, leading some election observers to say that the absence of a Libertarian Party candidate in 2024 likely allowed Evans to pick up just enough conservative votes to beat his Democratic opponent.
Wood, a long-time Libertarian who received the CD8 nomination with strong delegate support, previously ran for state representative for District 34 in 2000 as a Libertarian, and received 22% of the vote in his race against Democrat Lois Tochtrop, with no Republican on the ballot. Wood ran unopposed for the nomination.
In his convention speech before being nominated, Wood, now retired, discussed his experience being incarcerated for refusing to serve in the Vietnam War after being drafted, and indicated that he planned to stay in the race through the election if a better-suited candidate for the party didn’t come forward.
“Joe Johnson [LPCO Campaigns Director] called me up in the middle of the night and said, ‘We need somebody for District 8, would you do it?’ I said I would, but if there was someone more qualified, I would certainly give it up to that person,” said Wood. “But I will be more than a placeholder.”
The Colorado Libertarian Party (LPCO), the state’s largest minor party with more than 35,000 registered voters, has been mired in controversy since the party’s previous leadership introduced the ‘Liberty Pledge’ strategy in 2023. A result of collaboration between GOP and Libertarian Party leadership, the pledge strategy entailed the Libertarians not running their own candidates in tight races and instead supporting the Republican candidate, in exchange for the GOP candidate signing a pledge to uphold Libertarian values while in office.
Many members of the Libertarian Party saw the pledge as antithetical to its role as an alternative to the country’s two main political parties. Some complained that it was not the party leadership’s place to deny its members the option to vote for a Libertarian Party candidate. At its February meeting, after several proponents of the pledge had exited the party, the state board “formally denounced and nullified the so-called ‘Liberty Pledge.’”
During the February meeting, Evans’ adherence to the pledge was discussed, with LPCO state Chair Keith Laube noting that “he signed the pledge to oppose endless wars and to remove presidential war powers, and then did the opposite,” referring to his votes regarding the war in Iran.
Evans secured his spot on November’s ballot in March after trouncing fellow Republican Adam Derito at the GOP’s CD8 assembly and no Republican petitioned onto the primary ballot, meaning Evans will not face a Republican in June’s primary election. Three Democrats are currently vying for their party’s nomination to run in CD8: state Rep. Manny Rutinel, Shannon Bird, and Evan Munsing. Voters will choose one of them in the June primary to Face Evans in November.
Evans’s district is widely seen as a key battleground for the battle over which party controls the U.S. House after November’s midterm elections.
