Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans widened his lead over Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo as fresh results were posted late Saturday night, a critical update at the tail-end of a tight race to represent Colorado’s 8th Congressional District.
Evans led by 2,596 votes as of 10:52 p.m., up nearly 400 votes from a few hours earlier in the evening. In percentage terms, he had a 49% to 48.2% edge over Caraveo out of 330,792 ballots tallied.
The congressional district that includes sections of Adams, Larimer and Weld counties could play a pivotal role in the partisan battle over control of the House of Representatives, where Republicans seek to hold onto a narrow majority. The 8th Congressional District is one of 20 U.S. House races across the country that have yet to be called, .
Evans pulled ahead of Caraveo late Friday for the first time since election night, but it was thought that the remaining uncounted ballots in Democrat-friendly Adams County could return the lead to the freshman congresswoman. That has yet to happen this weekend despite Caraveo leading Evans in the county by nearly 21,000 votes.
As of Saturday afternoon, Larimer and Weld counties both reported they had completed their initial ballot counts.
Alan Philp, a representative of Evans’ campaign, said the candidate was “upbeat,” adding that they expected the initial counting of ballots would wrap up Saturday evening. It was possible, however, that not all votes had been tallied yet — and the coming week will bring the counting of ballots set aside for curing, which will affect the close results as well.
Kevin Porter, a spokesman for Caraveo’s campaign, said the congresswoman remained optimistic.
“Obviously, we knew this was going to be a close race — too close to call right now,” he said.
