June 04, 2024 11:08 AM UTC

Gabe-ish Evans Lands Trump Endorsement in CO-08

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republican State Rep. Gabe-ish Evans, who is hoping to defeat former State Rep. Janak Joshi in the Republican Primary Election in CO-08, picked up a boost on Monday from America’s most prominent porn star payoff-maker. That’s right: Evans has received the “Complete and Total Endorsement” from Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

As Ernest Luning explains for the publication formerly known as the Colorado Statesman, Trump’s support will likely help Evans in the June 25th Primary Election but won’t be a positive should he be the GOP candidate in the General Election against incumbent Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo:

Caraveo’s campaign declined to comment on the endorsement. State and national Democrats, however, suggested Trump’s backing could hinder Evans’ ability to attract moderate voters in the swing district, particularly in the wake of Trump’s conviction on multiple felonies last week in a New York trial on charges he falsified business records as part of a scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election.

“Evans will do anything to get elected, even stand by convicted felon Donald Trump. Now, Trump is rewarding Evans’ allegiance with an endorsement,” Mallory Payne, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Colorado Politics in a text message. “If it wasn’t already clear that Evans would cave to his MAGA leader’s every demand, it is now.”…

…Evans is the third candidate Trump has endorsed in a Colorado race this year, following his endorsements of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in a crowded primary in the 4th Congressional District and state Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams in the Colorado Springs-based 5th Congressional District.

Last month, the Colorado GOP formally threw its support behind Joshi after Evans refused to fill out a questionnaire that asked eligible Republican candidates to detail their history of voting for Trump, along with their positions on issues ranging from immigration and gun control to vaccine requirements.

Williams told Colorado Politics that the party stands with Joshi.

“We respect his decision but will stick with Joshi, especially since we can’t trust Evans to actually support Trump when it counts,” Williams said in a text message. [Pols emphasis]

Joshi might have been hoping for Trump’s endorsement, given that he has gone out of his way to compare his own legal troubles with that of the 45th President of the United States. As The Colorado Sun writes in its “Unaffiliated” newsletter, Joshi also got caught trying to make a hush money payment to a porn star…er, no, this was a little different:

Joshi compared the circumstances that led to him to surrender his medical license to the criminal prosecution that led to Donald Trump’s felony conviction last week.“It’s a very similar situation,” he said Saturday at the Republican Rumble debate hosted by the Republican Women of Weld at the Grizzly Rose.

Joshi said he surrendered his license in 2008 after being admonished by Colorado Board of Medical Examiners a year earlier and ordered to undergo additional training because he felt the training was unnecessary and his attorney said fighting the order would have cost $100,000. Being near retirement age, Joshi decided to stop practicing medicine.

“I was going to fight it and I would have won,” he said, calling patient-care allegations level against him “frivolous.”

As Luning reports, Joshi’s campaign thinks Trump got some bad advice:

A spokesman for Joshi’s campaign said that his primary opponent’s endorsement by Americans for Prosperity Action — a conservative advocacy group funded by the Koch network that campaigned against Trump in the GOP’s presidential primary — disqualifies Evans, despite Trump’s decision to endorse Evans. [Pols emphasis]

“Unfortunately, President Trump’s advisers have given him bad advice,” Chris McIntire, a senior advisor to the Joshi campaign, told Colorado Politics in a text message.

“Janak Joshi is the only one in this race who not only supports President Trump’s America First policies but has the legislative record to back it up,” McIntire added. “Gabe Evans has not only been running away from Trump, but is being bankrolled by the very dark money group that has spent millions trying to defeat Trump.”

As we’ve noted before, Williams no doubt helped direct the Colorado Republican Party to endorse Joshi over Evans in large part because Evans has received hundreds of thousands of dollars of support from the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Williams is also running in a Republican congressional primary in CO-05, and his opponent (Jeff Crank) is also a big recipient of financial help from AFP. It’s fair to wonder if Trump was aware of this connection given The Big Orange Guy’s contempt for AFP and its previous efforts to keep him out of the White House.

Evans hasn’t been exactly lighting the world on fire in his campaign in CO-08, leaving Joshi with an opportunity to steal a win in three weeks should the latter decide to put more of his own money into his campaign. Trump’s endorsement should help Evans in the final weeks of this race, but at what expense in a General Election?