Republican Gabe Evans holds lead over Democrat Yadira Caraveo, but winner in Colorado’s CD8 won’t be clear until Thursday
That's because there are thousands of ballots in the district that require "curing," which is when a voter must provide identification, add a missing signature to their ballot or address why their signature doesn't match what's on record with the state before their vote can be counted.
The deadline for voters to cure their ballots is Wednesday, and both Democrats and Republicans are flooding the district to make sure every vote is counted. County clerks have until Thursday to finish counting ballots cast in the 2024 election.
Adams County Clerk Josh Zygielbaum, a Democrat, said Saturday morning that there were 4,262 8th District ballots in his county that required curing before they could be counted.
As of Friday night in Weld County, there were about 3,200 ballots needing curing countywide, meaning that not all of them may have been cast in the 8th District race.
Because the list of voters who must cure their ballots is public, each county will protect the privacy of voters by holding back 500 to 1,000 regular ballots to mix with the cured ones when they are counted Thursday. That will help anonymize the ballots that were cured.
All other ballots in Weld County have been counted. In Adams County, Zygielbaum said Saturday evening that "there are a few thousand left to scan."
Zygielbaum said on Saturday morning that the county had about 17,000 more 8th District votes to count. The results of 12,000 of those were posted by 7 p.m. Saturday.
Caraveo was winning the 8th District vote in Adams County 103,873-82,512 on Saturday evening, while Evans was winning the 8th District vote in Weld County 68,540-46,458.
There is a tiny sliver of Larimer County that's also in the district. Evans was winning that slice on Saturday evening, 7,238-5,757.
Overall, the vote Saturday evening was 158,290 for Evans and 156,088 for Caraveo, or Evans with 49% of the vote to Caraveo's 48%. Evans was leading by 2,202 votes.
Caraveo, the first Latina elected to Congress in Colorado, is seeking a second term. Evans, an Army veteran and former police officer, is also Latino.
Republicans needed to win six more U.S. House races as of Saturday evening to keep their majority in the lower chamber of Congress in Washington, D.C.. They've already won control of the U.S. Senate and Republican Donald Trump will be president.
Both Democrats and Republicans are likely to initiate a mad dash into the 8th District to persuade voters to cure their ballots. The list of voters whose ballots need to be cured is public, so those people will be inundated with phone calls and knocks on their doors.
Local elections officials are supposed to inform voters if their ballots need curing. Voters can also check if their ballot has been accepted by searching for their voter registration on the Colorado Secretary of State's Office and clicking "ballot information."
If your ballot needs to be cured, you can find out how to do so through your county clerk's office or by checking out these state resources:
Colorado allows voters to cure their ballots via text message. They must obtain their voter identification number and then text "COLORADO" to 28683.
While the delay in vote counting in the 8th District is frustrating to some observers, it's not unusual for close races in Colorado to take more than a week to be decided as every vote is counted.
The race in Colorado's 8th District was focused heavily on immigration . About 40% of the district's population is Latino. Both candidates promised to get tough on illegal border crossings but differed on how to enforce the nation's immigration laws.
Abortion also played a central role in the contest, with Caraveo attacking Evans for his unclear and seemingly contradictory statements on the issue. Evans and Republicans, meanwhile, attacked Caraveo over her vote as a state lawmaker to defelonize fentanyl . running an onslaught of ads criticizing that decision.
Nearly $29 million was spent by super PACs on the race, most to benefit Caraveo. That eclipses the $16.6 million spent by super PACs in the district in 2022, which was the first election in the district created during Colorado's 2021 redistricting process.
Other Colorado races that won't be determined until next weekCaraveo held a lead over Evans until Friday night, when elections officials Weld County, a Republican stronghold, dropped the result of about 27,000 ballots it had tabulated that day.
That data dump also affected two statehouse races.
In House District 50, centered in Greeley, Republican Ryan Gonzalez took a lead over Democratic state Rep. Mary Young. She conceded as a result.
"Serving my community these past five years has been one of the greatest honors of my life, and I am proud of the very significant legislative accomplishments I was able to achieve," Young said in a written statement. "Unfortunately, we did not prevail in this very close election. I want to congratulate Ryan Gonzalez and wish him luck in his first legislative session."
In House District 19, which straddles the Weld-Boulder county line, former state Rep. Dan Woog, an Erie Republican, took a lead over Democrat Jillaire McMillan, a first time candidate. The district is currently represented by Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Parenti, who did not run for reelection.
The race had actually been called Friday by The Associated Press in McMillan's favor, but the news outlet — which The Colorado Sun relies on for election projections — rescinded the race call when Woog took the lead.
Woog was leading by 208 votes on Saturday afternoon.
The outcome of the race won't be clear until Thursday, after ballot curing is done in Weld and Boulder counties. Boulder County Clerk Molly Fitzpatrick, a Democrat, estimated there are roughly 500 House District 19 ballots that don't need to be cured but still must be counted, in addition to the 400 ballots in the district pending curing. There are also an unknown number of damaged ballots or ones from overseas/military voters countywide that still must be tabulated.
Finally, in House District 16 in Colorado Springs, Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Vigil trailed her Republican challenger, Rebecca Keltie, by just 21 votes on Saturday evening.
The outcome of that race is also unlikely to be known until Thursday given the small margin and the ballots left to cure. If McMillan and Vigil lose, Democrats will lose their supermajority in the Colorado House of Representatives , which they've had for two years. Losing the supermajority would require Democrats to work with Republicans to refer constitutional amendments to the ballot and to override any vetoes from Gov. Jared Polis.
