COMMERCE CITY — State Rep. Manny Rutinel defeated former state Rep. Shannon Bird on Tuesday in the Democratic primary in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District for a chance to unseat Republican U.S. Rep Gabe Evans in November.
The Associated Press called the race for Rutinel at 7:40 p.m. when he was leading Bird by 26 percentage points.
With Rutinel and Bird aligned on nearly every political issue, Rutinel, 31, argued the district that stretches from the Denver area’s northern suburbs through rural Adams and Weld counties up U.S. 85 into Greeley should be represented by a Latino.
About 40% of residents in the district, created in 2021, are Latino. The district has never been represented by someone who isn’t Latino in its short history.
Evans, a Republican, is the grandson of Mexican immigrants on his mother’s side. He became the latest lawmaker to represent the 8th District in Washington by defeating U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Democrat, in 2024 by just about 2,000 votes.
Rutinel, who entered his victory party holding hands with his partner, Paris Karstedt, to cheers, said he had spoken to Bird and thanked her for her commitment to help him defeat Evans. He said the sleeves that he had rolled up to sell his plasma over 100 times to help provide money to his family when he was a teenager would now be rolled up to fight the Republican.
“Together we will flip this seat,” he told the crowd packed into a small Mexican restaurant in Commerce City.
The crowd, which included former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, applauded when Rutinel vowed to restore funding to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. They booed when he accused Evans of cutting food aid.
Fred Sandoval, 73, of Thornton, said he talked to dozens of people that he ran into in recent months, at funerals, at the golf course and in his neighborhood, urging them to vote for Rutinel. He thinks it’s important to send both a younger representative to Washington as well as a Latino. He thinks Rutinel has a good chance of beating Evans.
“Gabe is in a weakened position because of his allegiance to Trump. In this state, that’s not the best place to be,” Sandoval said.
Bird congratulated Rutinel and asked voters to support him.
“I urge everyone to unite behind his campaign so we can flip the House and stop this reckless administration from continuing to wreak havoc on our communities,” she said in a statement.
During the campaign, Bird, 57, emphasized her deeper roots in the community and her willingness to listen to Latino voters, but Rutinel raised nearly double the campaign contributions than she did. He brought in more than $4 million, compared with the about $2.2 million that Bird raised and also benefited from millions of additional dollars in super PAC spending in the primary.
Rutinel was boosted by $3 million in help from groups working to elect Latinos and was one of several candidates backed by an initiative by the family of “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. Rutinel also picked up the endorsement of Salazar, the first Latino to represent Colorado in the Senate.
A PAC funded by Chris Larsen, a tech investor who is among the world’s richest people and who supports regulating artificial intelligence , also spent $980,000 on the race helping Rutinel.
Meanwhile, groups working to elect women, including those who support abortion rights, spent over $1 million in the race to help Bird. Women Vote, the federal super PAC tied to Emily’s List, spent about $1.3 million on ads attacking Rutinel, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Emily’s List works to help women get elected to public office.
Another super PAC, Pro-Choice Majority Action, spent about $90,000 to back Bird.
Evans, meanwhile, heads into the November election with about $5 million in the bank.
Rutinel said the strong work ethic he learned while being raised by a single, immigrant mother made him the perfect candidate to fight to win back a district that is considered one of the country’s most competitive.
Rutinel, whose voting record in the Legislature had been more progressive than Bird’s on issues like immigration and housing, moderated his stances during the primary campaign. He even reversed earlier positions, backing away from banning fracking, canceling all student debt and supporting Medicare for All.
He criticized Bird for her committee vote against a bill he sponsored last year to further limit local and state cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bird said she voted no because she was concerned about a provision that would have allowed state agency workers to be personally fined for sharing information with ICE.
Rutinel was born in Los Angeles but spent his first six years living in the Dominican Republic, where his mother is from. He often speaks about how he helped earn money in high school, working at McDonald’s, tutoring and selling his plasma. After sleeping on friends’ couches and floors during his first semester at the University of Florida, he went on to study at Johns Hopkins University and Yale Law School.
He first came to Colorado to work on the U.S. Senate campaign of John Hickenlooper in 2020 and returned to live in the state in 2022 after getting his law degree. He was appointed to his state House seat representing the Commerce City area in 2023 by a vacancy committee. He was elected to the seat the following year after running unopposed in both the primary and general elections.