U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans’ more nuanced position on immigration — compared to the Trump administration’s sweeping approach to removing immigrants who are in the country illegally — will become all the more critical for the freshman congressman as he attempts to retain his seat in November.
Voters from both parties in the Republican’s 8th Congressional District overwhelmingly favor a lighter touch than the raids and mass roundups used in President Donald Trump’s second term, according to poll results released Wednesday by the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.
Colorado’s 8th District, which takes in parts of Weld, Larimer and Adams counties north of Denver, has among the state’s eight congressional districts. Both Evans and his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, are Latino.
“There is tremendous common ground to build on to create legislative proposals (on immigration),” said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation, which conducted the poll. “There is an overarching sense that action must be taken.”
Still, bipartisan agreement on immigration reform has eluded Congress for years.
The survey, which Kull addressed for reporters on Wednesday in an online briefing, found voters on the right and left largely agree on a number of immigration-related questions both nationally and across more than two dozen battleground House districts. That’s true whether it’s about creating pathways to citizenship for people brought to the United States illegally as children or about requiring employers to verify a worker’s immigration status before hiring them.
The findings come from the latest release of a poll that included 500 voters in the 8th District in May and June. Earlier releases have addressed their views on several other issues, including the regulation of artificial intelligence and the government’s role in healthcare.
When it comes to immigration, Democrats are intent on pinning some of the uglier sides of enforcement under Trump to Republican incumbents in hopes of taking control of the closely divided House chamber in January. Rutinel has made criticism of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sometimes-harsh enforcement tactics a central theme of his campaign.
Evans has tried to create daylight between himself and the administration on the issue, highlighting his decision last year to join five other congressional Republicans in penning a letter to ICE leadership about its enforcement strategies, and asking whether the agency was prioritizing the deportation of criminals.
Erin Covey, the U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report, said getting out from under Trump’s shadow will be a tall order for Evans. The 8th District, she said, ranks second in the nation in Latino population for a battleground district currently led by a Republican.
Cook .
“I think Trump is an anchor on Evans in a way he isn’t on other Republicans in other competitive districts,” she said. “Latino voters are going to be a crucial part of either candidate’s fortunes.”
In Colorado’s 8th District, 66% of Republican or GOP-leaning voters and 87% of Democrats or those leaning left said they favored a long-term visa for immigrants who have been in the country for a while and who have committed no crime.
An even higher share of Republican voters and leaners — 77% — said children brought to the United States illegally as children should be provided a path to citizenship, provided they have not committed a significant crime and are employed, in college or serving in the military. Democrats and left-leaners registered an 88% approval of that question, according to the poll.
A dual question asked whether employers should be required to use E-Verify to ensure workers they hire are in the country legally and if more work visas should be issued, provided there’s a demand for workers. Both Democratice- and Republican-leaning voters responded overwhelmingly in the affirmative: 87% for Democrats and 85% for Republicans.
A majority of voters on both sides, according to the poll results, said more judges should be hired to adjudicate asylum cases. Sixty-six percent of Republicans were in favor while 83% of Democrats said yes.
The one question on which 8th District Republicans lined up nearly perfectly with the Trump administration was the need to deport those in the country illegally who had committed a crime. Ninety-eight percent of GOP-affiliated voters supported that policy, while 74% of Democrat-leaning respondents in the district did.
The University of Maryland survey came out just days after a Colorado Latino Policy Agenda poll revealed that 66% of Latino voters statewide said they felt the country was on the wrong track as their frustrations about the cost of living — which ranked higher than any other issue, including immigration — had gone unaddressed and, for many, had worsened.
For Evans, the dissatisfaction among Latino voters poses a potential hurdle to reelection. Only 34% of voting Latinos in his district regarded him favorably, while 42% viewed him unfavorably, according to that poll, which was conducted between July 1 and Aug. 11.
