Colorado Libertarian endorses Republican Gabe Evans, drops out of contested 8th District race | TRAIL MIX | Columnists

Republican candidate Gabe Evans received more than just an endorsement this week from his one-time rival Eric Joss, the former Libertarian Party candidate in Colorado's most contested congressional district.

In an online press conference, Joss said he would support Evans and withdraw his candidacy from the ballot so as not to spoil Republicans' attempt to unseat Democratic U.S. Representative Yadira Caraveo in the narrowly divided 8th Congressional District.

The district spans parts of Adams, Larimer and Weld counties north of the Denver metropolitan area and is one of the few undecided seats in the country where both parties agree they could decide which party wins the majority in the House of Representatives.

The surprise announcement – which the president of the largest super PAC to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives called a “big deal” – is the culmination of an agreement negotiated more than a year ago by the leaders of the Colorado Republican Party and the Libertarian Party, who said they would form a partnership aimed at wresting Democrats' hold on state offices.

“Whatever our candidate can do to work with the Libertarian Party and turn around CD8 is welcome news, and the state party is happy to have laid the groundwork with the Libertarian Party over the past year to even make this possible,” Republican Chairman Dave Williams told Colorado Politics.

To secure Joss's support, Evans signed a heavily revised version of the “Freedom Pledge” launched last year by Colorado State Libertarians, committing to keep promises described as “the best way to make America a freer and more prosperous country.”

“Republicans and Libertarians are joining forces to defeat Yadira Caraveo and her extreme, left-wing agenda,” Evans said in a statement, adding that he and Joss are “united in our determination to curb the size, scope, cost and corruption of government.”

Jordan Marinovich, spokesman for the state's Libertarian Party, called Joss' decision a “strategic maneuver” aimed at consolidating votes against the incumbent. The party hopes the move will prevent Joss from splitting the electorate with Evans, who leans more conservative, and will pave “the way for more freedom in Colorado.”

Two years ago, Caraveo stunned election forecasters when she won the newly created seat by one of the narrowest margins of any congressional election in the country, defeating Republican Barb Kirkmeyer by 1,632 votes, or 0.69 percentage points.

At the same time, the district's Libertarian candidate for the 2022 election, Dan Ward – a tattooed electrician and sound engineer for a local heavy metal band – was able to attract an unusually large share of the vote for a third-party candidate, with 9,280 votes, or 3.9 percentage points, more than five times Caraveo's lead.

The Libertarian Party, founded in Colorado in the early 1970s, is the state's largest minor political party, and its candidates tend to outperform the electoral rate. Libertarian candidates make up just under 1% of the state's active, registered voters and typically receive about 2% of the vote. Ward's vote share, however, was double the party's usual share, and Ward's vote total drew protests from Republicans that the Libertarian Party had diverted enough votes to give Caraveo the win.

After Republicans lost Colorado in what should have been a tough election for Democrats last cycle — and which one Republican politician who lost his seat called an “annihilation-level event” — Ward’s performance seemed to explain at least one high-profile Republican loss, although Ward disputed that conclusion.

Ward, a former Green Party member who describes himself as a libertarian socialist, stressed that his voters are not primarily disaffected Republicans, noting that he has campaigned extensively among district residents who have told him they would not have voted otherwise.

An analysis of the district's ballots supports Ward's interpretation, showing that voters who chose the Libertarian were only slightly more likely to vote in another, pivotal race on the same ballot than those who voted Republican.

“I don’t think there’s any data to show there’s going to be a dramatic shift in voting,” Austin Blumenfeld, a housing activist and longtime former Democratic official, told Colorado Politics this week.

Blumenfeld examined detailed 2022 election reports released by election officials in Adams and Larimer counties and found that Ward's voters were almost as likely to vote for Democrats as they were for the Republican running for regent of the University of Colorado – a race often used to gauge general partisan preferences.

“It makes sense that this is a protest vote, more than anything, by people who were unhappy with both (Caraveo and Kirkmeyer),” he said, noting that before the election last cycle, outside groups spent more than $10 million to flood the airwaves with attack ads targeting the two major party candidates. “Voters are going to be fed up with both candidates after all this.”

Still, the narrative that the Libertarian had snatched victory from Kirkmeyer prevailed, and so last year Williams, the Colorado Republican chairman, encouraged fellow Libertarian Hannah Goodman to see if they could stop third-party candidates from “messing up” the swing races for congressional and legislative seats this year.

A handful of Republicans embraced Libertarian pledges earlier this year, but many of them failed to make the general election, including Janak Joshi, who lost the 8th District primary to Evans by more than 50 percentage points.

When Evans announced his candidacy a year ago, he refused to join the Libertarians, challenging numerous clauses in the party's pledge – including cutting off funding from Ukraine “immediately” and working to dismantle the U.S. intelligence community. But this week, Evans said he would happily sign the updated draft he negotiated with Joss.

“We will not agree on everything,” Evans said. “But we have reached agreement on many issues and are united in a common mission: to defeat Yadira Caraveo, a left-wing extremist.”

A spokeswoman for the Caraveo campaign group responded that Evans had described himself as an extremist.

“For months, Gabe Evans has claimed to oppose the provisions of the Libertarian Party's campaign pledge,” Mary Alice Blackstock, Caraveo's campaign manager, said in a written statement. “Now, at a time when it is politically convenient, he has made a backroom deal to revive his campaign and changed his position.”