U.S. Rep.-elect Gabe Evans will soon be the second person to represent Colorado’s competitive 8th Congressional District.

The 38-year-old Fort Lupton Republican will go to Congress after one term in the Colorado House of Representatives, where he served on the state’s energy and environment and judiciary committees. He spent 10 years as a police officer in Arvada and 12 years in the U.S. Army and Colorado Army National Guard.

Evans defeated Democratic U.S. Representative Yadira Caraveo in the November election with 49 percent of the vote over Caraveo’s 48.2 percent. Drawn by an independent redistricting commission in 2021, the 8th District encompasses Denver’s Democratic-leaning northern suburbs as well as more conservative rural areas in southern Weld County.

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Evans said his top priorities when he gets to Washington, D.C., will be securing the border, improving the cost of living and increasing public safety in the 8th District.

“Those were the problems that I saw during my time particularly in law enforcement, and so those are the things that I’m going to be super excited about to continue to work on in Congress,” he said.

When talking to constituents on the campaign trail, Evans said he asked what the No. 1 issue affecting their community is, and he estimated 90 percent of those he talked to “in one form or another mentioned securing the border.”

Securing the border is the most important first step when it comes to immigration policy reform, he said. Until that happens, “deportation is meaningless” because a deportee can come right back, he said. The U.S. then has to “fix our broken immigration system” to allow for people following the law to become citizens in a timely manner, he said.

“I’ve got a gentleman that lives in the 8th Congressional District, he’s been trying for 17 years to get his citizenship. He’s clearly committed to following the law and doing things right, and he told me he’s got probably another four years to go before he can get his citizenship,” Evans said. “It’s entirely too long for somebody that’s committed to following our laws to have to wait over two decades and then to turn around and be cut in line by folks that are illegally cutting across the border.”

The last step is then to “aggressively go after” criminals who are here illegally “in our communities selling fentanyl, stealing cars, committing other sorts of crimes,” Evans said.

Evans appeared on stage for a speech when President-elect Donald Trump in October he came to Aurora, where Trump detailed his plans to “hunt down, arrest and deport,” undocumented immigrants connected to gangs and spoke of “cleaning out” the country of undocumented immigrants. Trump called the plan Operation Aurora.

‘Generally a free market guy’

Evans will serve on the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He said the committee represents “the length and breadth of the district uniquely,” as the district is “one of the highest energy producing districts in the nation” for all methods including oil and gas, wind, solar, and geothermal.

“Truly, the 8th Congressional District is an all-of-the-above energy powerhouse to the tune of well over $30 billion worth of energy,” Evans said, “and so being able to advocate for our economy, for good policies across the nation from that position on the energy and commerce committee is going to be a way that we deliver on those campaign promises of making things affordable, making sure folks can get good jobs, making sure that we’re protecting and empowering our American economy and American workers.”

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Evans said Congress needs to find ways to control government spending given the country’s $36 trillion debt, as he doesn’t want that debt “to be rolled on into the future for my kids,” but the federal government also must deliver “critical government services that people depend on” like Social Security. He said for his parents, “Social Security is their retirement.”

“We have to continue to follow through on those critical government obligations that we’ve made a promise about, but there’s also so many different places where we can look to go find ways to reduce spending, increase efficiency and streamline government operations,” he said.

As a member of the Legislative Audit Committee in Colorado, Evans said a recent audit of the state’s Medicaid program will help him bring an understanding of how states are using federal dollars to Congress and what needs to be changed.

Evans said he’s “generally a free market guy” when it comes to international trade, but he said “the free market only works when you’re working with other honest actors.” For example, he said China tries to “skew trade and the economy in their favor, to include outright human rights violations.”

“Tariffs for those entities where we’re trying to correct some behavior and get back to that level playing field, especially in cases like China, I think tariffs are an important tool in the tool box,” Evans said.

Trump has said he will impose sweeping 25 percent tariffs on major American trade partners including Mexico, Canada and China as part of his efforts to bring down the cost of living. Economic experts say Trump’s proposals will hurt American families’ wallets with more expensive cars, appliances and technology.

Evans said he will approach representing the 8th District the same way he approached being a police officer, in that he works for “each and every person in this district, regardless of whether they voted for me or not” and regardless of their political party.

He touted that 60 percent of the bills he introduced passed when he was part of a GOP superminority in the Colorado House of Representatives, and said he’s already building relationships with other members of Colorado’s federal delegation on the other side of the aisle, including U.S. Representative Jason Crow, a Centennial Democrat and fellow Army veteran.

“Congress typically works better when you have more veterans, because Republican, Democrat are something else, we all come with that same shared background of having raised our right hand and said ‘My country before myself, up to and including my life,” Evans said.

Colorado’s new members of Congress spend the time between Election Day and Jan. 3 transitioning constituent services and setting up offices in their districts and D.C. Evans is standing up district offices in Greeley and Northglenn.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com.