CO-8 · House

The district, in brief

Colorado's 8th district includes the northern Front Range cities and surrounding Denver communities, including Thornton, Brighton, Johnstown, and Greeley. The lines are not redrawn for 2026; the facts record the map as first used in 2022 and carry results only for 2022, won by Democrat Yadira Caraveo, and 2024, won by Republican Gabe Evans. The text gives no presidential results, but the facts carry a 2024 presidential baseline on the current lines.

The incumbent is Republican Gabe Evans, who flipped the district and was elected with 49.0% of the vote in 2024; he was unopposed in the Republican primary with 48,012 votes. The Democratic nominee is Manny Rutinel, a former state representative from the 32nd district (2023–2026), who won the Democratic primary with 62.8% over Shannon Bird, a former state representative from the 29th district, at 32.5%, with 4.6% for the withdrawn Evan Munsing. Former U.S. representative Yadira Caraveo and State Treasurer Dave Young were among those who withdrew. As of June 30, 2026 Evans had raised $5,393,673 with $3,880,463 on hand; Rutinel $4,336,988 with $601,232 on hand.

The Cook Political Report (February 6, 2025), Inside Elections (March 7, 2025), Sabato's Crystal Ball (April 10, 2025) and The Economist (May 6, 2026) all call the seat Tossup; Decision Desk HQ lists it as Flip (September 25, 2026). One general-election poll is recorded: McLaughlin and Associates, a Republican firm (September 16–17, 2026, 400 likely voters), had Evans 48%, Rutinel 46%, undecided 6%.

A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.

The facts, each beside its sentence

Not in the source: No presidential results in the text; the facts carry a 2024 presidential baseline on the current lines but the text does not state it.; The model's basis says no district polls, but the text records one general-election poll (McLaughlin and Associates (R), September 16–17, 2026) and several Democratic primary polls; none is in the project's poll corpus.; Endorsement sections for the nominees are empty; endorsements are only recorded for withdrawn or declined candidates.; Decision Desk HQ's 'Flip' ranking is not explained in the text.; The text does not give a 2024 result for the district beyond Evans's 49.0%; the facts give results only for 2022 and 2024.

Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 8bb7a50842a1; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.

Who holds the seat now

Gabe Evans (Republican), in this chamber since 2025, 1 term. Committees: House Committee on Homeland Security; House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.

How it has voted for president

A shift of 0.7 points toward the Democrats from 2016 to 2024. county returns placed on the current lines by 2020 block population; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.

Who are the voters?

Of about 469,799 adults 25 and over. In 2020 the district voted 52.3% Democratic (two-party) for president. With the same preferences and a 2022-style midterm turnout, it would vote 53.8% Democratic: the midterm electorate alone moves the margin 3.0 points toward Democrats. Group shares are estimated from how results vary across the state's census tracts (ecological inference, anchored to Pew's 2020 validated-voter figures) and calibrated to this district's actual 2020 vote; turnout is the Census survey's state rate by race and national rate by education, whose state samples carry margins of several points.

Not answered here: how each group will vote in 2026. These are 2020 preferences; this profile is description, not yet an input to the forecast.

The money

FEC bulk candidate summaries through June 30, 2026; $7,985,416 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.

The district in numbers

ACS 5-year 2023, the Census Bureau's own tabulation of this district (118th Congress lines). Unemployment is the BLS county series placed on the district by block population, not seasonally adjusted, so changes are same-month comparisons. Income, transfers and jobs are BEA county accounts placed the same way, compared with the average district. Every other figure is a named column of a named table in the Bureau's summary file, archived before it was read. This is what a reader knows about a district before looking at a poll; the model does not yet use it, and whether it should is a registered question.

Who is favoured, and by how much?

The 90% interval runs from -8.3 to +19.4 points, D-R. It is wide because this district has never been polled.

What is this built on?

A model trained on every contested House race 2012-2024 predicts this district's lean from its own record: presidential and House results on the current lines, incumbency, both candidates' prior offices, outside and party money before 1 October, demographics and public-assistance shares from the Census release before the election, local unemployment and income, and religious tradition. The national margin comes from presidential approval, the economy, the midterm penalty and the generic ballot corrected for its measured lean. Draws share national and state errors, so the seat total and this district come from the same simulation.

Not answered here: district polls, which are not yet folded in.

Why does the model say this?

Each figure is how far this district's predicted lean moves when that one feature is set to the typical value across 2026 districts, everything else held: total outside/party money: 6.0 pts toward the Democrat; pc income growth 2y (6.95): 0.9 pts toward the Democrat; outside money balance: 0.8 pts toward the Democrat; religion: adherents (27.4%): 0.5 pts toward the Democrat; pop (740688): 0.4 pts toward the Republican.

How sure is it, and of what?

Total sd 8.46 points, made of the seat's own volatility 90%, correlated polling error 10%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.

Not answered here: a nowcast. 'If ballots were cast today' needs something that observes today, and for a House district nothing does. Publishing the election-day figure under both labels would make one forecast look like two.

How was this number made?

Run 00a09d4b-7980-4ec5-ada0-077968a87242, house_district_prior/0.2.0, as of 2026-10-02. Promoted by a pre-registered gate: on 2016-2022 its Brier score was 0.036 against 0.049 for the previous method, and on a single 2024 run 0.023 against 0.032 (experiments/district_gate_result.md, with an independent review).