COLORADO, USA — There are currently half a dozen political ads targeting Colorado’s 8th Congressional District (CD8).
The state’s most competitive Congressional race covers Adams and Weld Counties, with a sliver of Larimer County.
In 2022, Democratic Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo won the first election for that district. She defeated Republican opponent Barbara Kirkmeyer by 1,632 votes.
Caraveo is running for reelection against Republican State Rep. Gabe Evans.
One of the negative ads is from the House Majority PAC, the national Super Political Action Committee focused on electing Democrats to Congress.
AD CLAIM: “Evans joined Lauren Boebert to spread lies about election results and supports a group that wants to rewrite the whole Constitution.”
VERDICT: This needs to be taken in two parts: “No” and “Kind Of”
No, Evans is not spreading lies about election results, even though the ad does its darndest to connect Evans with Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert.
9NEWS hosted a debate with Evans and Caraveo on Oct. 8. At that debate, moderator Kyle Clark asked, “Who won the 2020 presidential election?
Evans answered, “Joe Biden.”
However, at a Jan. 25 CD8 primary debate, Evans was asked to answer “yes” or “no” if he thought the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
“No-ish,” Evans said on Jan. 25.
At a June 1 primary debate, Evans was asked to clarify the “ish” from his “No-ish” answer in January.
“So, I answered ‘ish’ there because, to me, those aren’t yes/no questions,” Evans said.
AD CLAIM: “…and supports a group that wants to rewrite the whole Constitution.”
VERDICT: The second part about supporting a group that wants to rewrite the Constitution is “Kind Of.”
That group is the Convention of States and Evans spoke at one of the group's meetings last year.
Convention of States is trying to get two-thirds of state legislatures to call for an Article V Convention. That is the part of the U.S. Constitution that allows state legislatures to call a convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Evans was one of 11 Republican sponsors of a resolution this year to have Colorado become one of the 34 states.
That resolution called for specific amendments on fiscal restraints, limited power and jurisdiction for the federal government and called for a term limits amendment. The resolution failed in its first committee. The resolution was not to rewrite the Constitution.
AD CLAIM: “Evans says that gays and lesbians shouldn't be allowed to marry. He even compared gay marriage to incest.”
VERDICT: Yes, but apparently not anymore
Yes, Evans filled out a questionnaire for a conservative group while running for State House in 2022 and chose "strongly agree" when asked if "Marriage is a God-ordained, sacred and legal union of one man and one woman. No government has the authority to alter this definition."
On Wednesday, Evans said that his answer was theological as a Christian, meaning that he agreed the government has no authority to tell a church their definition of marriage.
According to his campaign manager, Evans did not change his position. It's a case of separation of church and state. His 2022 statement on the questionnaire was theological, as a Christian. His view as a legislator is that the state should not be deciding this.
The part about incest comes from a letter to the editor Evans sent to the Elbert County News as a 17-year-old in 2004.
It was in response to a letter in support of same-sex marriage.
Evans said, “If gay marriages are allowed, the institution of marriage will have been redefined to include all of the perverted and immoral practices mentioned above.”
In the paragraph earlier, he mentioned “incest, pederasty and bestiality.”
On Wednesday, Evans said that his letter to the editor was more than 20 years ago when he had not had a girlfriend yet and was not old enough to vote. He said his perspective and opinion has changed a lot since then.
Evans said he would be voting in favor of Amendment J, which would remove from the Colorado Constitution the definition that only a union of one man and one woman is valid or recognized as marriage in Colorado.
State lawmakers referred that measure to the ballot, but Evans was excused and did not vote when the State House took up the resolution. He was in attendance in the House that day.
According to his campaign manager, Evans would have voted yes.
“He was excused from several votes that day as it was the end of the session, and he and several legislators were trying to negotiate compromises on oil and gas, pesticide regulation and other issues,” the campaign manager said.
There's one more thing to note. The ad is deceptive in what it shows on screen for this claim.
On the claim about same-sex marriage, the on-screen citation says the voter questionnaire was “accessed 7/16/24.”
That is misleading. That is when the House Majority PAC accessed the questionnaire, but Evans filled it out in 2022.
AD CLAIM: “He would make abortion illegal even in cases of rape or incest.”
VERDICT: Not according to his current position, but…
In the Oct. 8 debate, Evans said, “I support exceptions for rape, for incest, for life of the mother, and I don't support a national abortion ban."
His answer in a survey in 2022, though, does not match that position.
When answering a survey for a conservative group, he checked the box “S” for “Support” when asked “Prohibiting Abortion: Prohibiting abortion except when necessary to save the mother's life.”
The other options were “O” for “Oppose” and “NR” for “No response.”
"That was a checkbox survey that had two options, one pro-life, one pro-choice option,” Evans said at the Oct. 8 debate. “I'm pro-life, so I selected the pro-life."
However, the survey also allowed for additional comments. Evans did not include additional comments to specify exceptions such as rape or incest.
In another section on education, 10 questions later, Evans did include additional comments to clarify one of the checkboxes.