Living up to its reputation as one of the nation’s closest contests for Congress, the race for Colorado’s 8th Congressional District remained locked in a stalemate Thursday evening as Democratic incumbent Yadira Caraveo clung to a razor-thin lead over her Republican opponent, state Rep. Gabe Evans.
Two days after polls closed, both campaigns were waiting to see if new ballot totals posted by election officials would sway the race in a more definitive direction. As of 6:04 p.m., Caraveo had just over 49% of the vote to Evans’ 48.2%, out of 290,306 votes tallied.
By day’s end, the margin had narrowed slightly from 24 hours earlier, settling — for the night — at a little more than 2,300 votes.
Alan Philp, Evans’ campaign consultant who also ran state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer’s race against Caraveo in 2022, said the campaign was still waiting on a final count from the 8th District’s three counties — Weld, Adams and Larimer.
“So prob going to be super close,” Philp wrote in an email Thursday afternoon.
A spokesman for Caraveo’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The two counties that include the bulk of the district have favored different candidates, with each release from Adams County boosting Caraveo while Weld County’s updates help Evans.
The race to represent the district, which covers the northern Denver suburbs up through Greeley and Berthoud, is one of the most closely watched congressional contests in the nation. Cook Political Report ranks it as a tossup, one of only a handful of congressional districts in the country with Democratic incumbents that fall in that category.
Caraveo won it two years ago by fewer than 2,000 votes.
The race has attracted big spending from outside groups, much of which fueled a seemingly endless round of campaign ads leading up to Election Day.
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