This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
There’s coffee being poured and plates of eggs, pancakes and bacon hitting the tables at The Butcher Block Cafe in Commerce City. In the middle of the small diner sits Democrat Shannon Bird, with about a dozen local leaders, fellow candidates and constituents.
Bird, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, and military veteran Evan Munsing are all on the Democratic primary ballot, hoping to challenge Republican Rep. Gabe Evans this fall and be the next person to represent the 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Evans is considered by pundits and consultants to both parties to be one of the most endangered GOP House members. The district, which stretches from the northern Denver suburbs up into Greeley, is swingy. Had the district existed in 2020, voters there would have supported Democrat Joe Biden. (It was created in 2021). In 2024, however, CD8 voters went for Republican Donald Trump. Evans was elected by less than a percent that year, just as Democrat Yadira Caraveo won it by less than a percent in 2022.
If past cycles are any indication, it will be an expensive race, with lots of outside money coming in, and could help determine which party controls the House of Representatives next year.
That’s why conversations like the one at the diner are important to Bird.
“Meeting voters where they're at, coming and hearing directly from people, making sure I'm building the broadest coalition possible. It's how I've won every other campaign,” Bird explained.
And the people around the table are expressing their concerns, as well as what they’re hearing from others.
“Housing’s a huge thing,” said Brandi Valdez, a self-described Commerce City community member. She told Bird that affordable housing is still not affordable for many in the community. “And then we have groceries, and not being able to afford that. And then, with not getting a lot of funding from federal and state for childcare, that’s putting huge strains on families.”
Another attendee, who is also a candidate in a different race, said it is all that and more.
“It's cost of living, it's the price of gas. It’s ‘Oh my gosh, are we going to have a draft because we're sending kids off to war,’” said Chris Van Dijk, who’s running to replace Rutinel in the state house. “It’s like all of these little tiny things. It’s death by a thousand cuts. And every day it just gets a tiny, tiny bit harder.”
Affordability — from gas to health care — Iran, data centers, federal grants, pot holes and more came up during the almost two hours Bird was sitting in the diner.
“Those are the stories and the voices that drive me every day. It's why I vote the way that I do. It defines the work that I've done at the [state] Capitol. I have stood up for the people in my community over and over again,” she said after the meet and greet, pointing to legislation like fully funding the state’s public schools, working to strengthen Medicaid or investing in affordable housing.
Bird’s background is in public finance and corporate law. She won a seat on the Westminster City Council before running for the State House in 2016, where she served until earlier this year. She ranked as the most effective state lawmaker for the 2023-24 term by the Center for Effective Lawmaking and served on the powerful Joint Budget Committee. The 56-year-old resigned from office to focus on her congressional campaign.
While campaigning, Bird also talked about being raised by a single mom and being the first in her family to go to college. “I have lived a life that I think a lot of people can connect with in this district. People understand that to get wherever you want to go, you have to work harder than anybody else to get there, and that's the thread that I'm finding in this community that unifies all of us.”
A relative newcomer to Colorado stakes his claim
The first person to jump into the race, however, was state Rep. Manny Rutinel.
The charismatic newcomer to Colorado and politics immigrated with his mother from the Dominican Republic when he was 6. He went from working at McDonald's in high school to a law degree from Yale.
“I know what the struggles of working people are because I've lived them myself, and I know that we need leaders in Congress that understand the stakes,” he said during an interview with CPR News, a couple of blocks away from the State Capitol.
Rutinel came to Colorado in 2022 and worked for Earthjustice, a public interest environmental non-profit. In 2023, he was appointed to a seat in the state legislature via a vacancy committee and ran for that seat in 2024.
A few months after that victory, he launched his campaign for Congress.
Even though he’s spent a short time in the state legislature, he said his experience speaks for itself, including sponsoring a bill that lowers childhood poverty by expanding Colorado's Earned Income Tax Credit.
“I have always fought for working people. I've always put up a fight against the horrors of the Trump administration, and that's the kind of leadership that we need in Congress,” he said.
This is also the congressional district with the largest Hispanic population. Rutinel argued that he would be representative of the voters here.
“This district is drawn for Latino working-class representation. It's 40% Latino, the most Latino in the entire state. I am a Latino working-class candidate,” he said.
Stacy Suniga is president of the Latino Coalition of Weld County and said representation does matter. “I think Latinos get excited when they see a Latino running.”
But she’s not writing off Bird. “Shannon has kind of jumped on that and said, ‘Hey, I'm not a Latina, but how can I support Latinos in this district if I win?’ And so that means a lot,” Suniga said.
The Latino vote could be significant in this race, which swung towards Trump and Republicans in 2024, but has been swinging away in elections since, in large part because of Trump's mass deportation policy.
It’s become a main issue in the primary, with Rutinel focusing his fire on Bird. He’s got a digital ad running slamming Bird for some of her statehouse immigration votes, such as voting against a measure to ban local governments from renting bed space to ICE and another bill last year that further limited local and state cooperation with ICE. Bird voted against the bill in committee over concerns that state employees would be responsible for paying large fines if they inadvertently shared information with ICE.
Bird said she wants to see ICE overhauled, including banning face masks, mandating body cameras, having protected spaces such as hospitals, courthouses and schools from ICE enforcement, and holding ICE accountable if agents break the law. Her campaign also noted that while she voted against that ICE vote in committee, she missed the floor vote due to a family emergency and would have supported it there.
For all his focus on his Latino, working-class background and fighting the Trump Administration, Rutinel has also made past comments regarding the agriculture industry, specifically the animal meat industry, that have ruffled feathers in Weld County, the heart of the state’s ag industry. The 8th District is also awash in oil and gas workers who may look questionably on his environmental law background.
“I believe in all of the above energy approach,” Rutinel said. “Also, we need to make sure that if a corporation is breaking the laws, that we hold them accountable. That's what my approach has always been throughout my entire career, is to make sure that we have a level playing field so that all businesses are able to succeed so long as they're playing by the rules.”
Rutinel and Bird can point to endorsements from local lawmakers, from different labor groups, from different groups in Congress, such as the BOLD PAC (Rutinel) or Blue Dog PAC (Bird), and there’s a third candidate in the race.
A long-shot bid or a spoiler candidate?
Veteran Evan Munsing said that people want a different kind of leadership in Congress. “We need new blood, and we need people from outside the system to come in and fix this broken system.”
A former Marine turned business consultant, he is also a recent transplant to Colorado and the district.
“I know what it's like to lead people. I know what it's like to make sacrifices for this country. And I know what it's like to solve problems that Americans face every day,” he said. “I think that's very unique, particularly in this race where I'm running against two career politicians, who haven't worn the uniform and haven't run businesses and they're part of a political class that is increasingly distant from the average American.”
In what is expected to be one of the most expensive House races in the Country, though, Munsing’s fundraising has paled compared to Rutinel and Bird.
Munsing petitioned to get onto the ballot, as did Bird. But Bird can point to winning past elections, not so for Munsing, who also no longer has any paid campaign staff and is relying on volunteers. Still, he points to a poll his campaign commissioned earlier this year that shows he’d beat Evans if given the chance in November.
“I think we all have the same hurdle, which is we all have to educate voters on who we are and why we're running and what we stand for,” Munsing said. “I think in a district like this, people number one really care about winning the general election.”
Talking to Democratic and some unaffiliated voters, that does seem to be the main consideration: who can beat Evans?
“I think for me, on a local level, that's the biggest thing — is finding someone who can run against and beat Gabe Evans and help flip the House of Representatives,” said Democrat Mary Stack, who has heard both Bird and Rutinel speak.
Susan McIntosh, an unaffiliated voter in Greeley, put it simply. “He’s got to go.”
One thing all three Democratic candidates agreed on is that they’d support the winner of the primary on June 30.
For the most part, national Republicans are enjoying watching Democrats go after one another in the district.
“Whoever emerges from the Democrats’ clown show will be just another out-of-touch liberal ready to be rejected by Coloradans,” said NRCC spokesman Zach Bannon in a statement.
And Weld County GOP chair Hunter Rivera is feeling good about Evans’ chances. “We have a strong candidate going into that election.”
Evans has a campaign war chest of $3.4 million as of March 31, and with no primary challenger, he can focus it all on the general election.
But some Republicans are worried about national trends, including the party in power losing power in the midterm elections.
Josh Gregorio is a Republican voter from Greeley. He voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, but not in 2024. While he thinks Evans might be able to pull out a win, “I think Trump’s ruining it for Republicans.”
