October 04, 2024 11:36 AM UTC

I'm Gabe Evans, and This is the Worst Ad You've Seen in Years

• 2 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

There’s a well-worn axiom in politics that says, If you’re explaining, you’re losing.

If that saying still holds true in 2024, then Republican Gabe Evans is most definitely losing.

Evans is clearly worried that his history of opposition to abortion rights will cost him votes in his quest to defeat incumbent Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo in the eighth congressional district. Evans should be concerned, for two very obvious reasons:

1) Voters across the country have made it abundantly clear since the elimination of Roe v. Wade that they support the preservation of abortion rights. Here in Colorado, voters have repeatedly rejected attempts to restrict abortion rights and will likely approve a ballot measure this fall to enshrine such rights in the State Constitution.

2) There is no question that Evans opposes abortion rights. Evans has said that “I am about as pro-life as they come.” As a state lawmaker, Evans has regularly supported (failed) legislative attempts at restricting abortion in Colorado.

Evans has tried to deal with this problem in recent months by launching into an inexplicable “leave it up to the states” argument and joking that he “don’t got the right parts” to understand the nuances of reproductive health care. What Evans won’t do is elaborate on the question of when and how abortion should actually be outlawed. Caraveo and her supporters have wisely been drilling Evans over his opposition to abortion rights throughout the campaign in CO-08.

Today, Evans released a new TV advertisement that attempts to counteract those attacks but really just creates more problems for the Republican candidate:

The ad shows a monotone Evans sitting at a kitchen table wearing seven different shirts and scrolling through a tablet computer. Evans whines that “Yadira Caraveo is getting desperate” and that “my abortion position is clear” before outlining the “exceptions” that he claims he would support in any discussion over restricting abortion rights.

The ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ kicker is about as laugh-out-loud ridiculous as you’ll find on television:

“Yadira Caraveo is the real extremist.”

Oy.

Here’s the problem with this ad, beyond the drab vocal stylings and bizarre wardrobe: If you’re saying, “YOU’RE the extremist” on abortion, you’re still fighting it out in the same ‘abortion rights’ frame. You absolutely do NOT want to be in that frame if your name is Gabe Evans. 

There’s no such thing as being sorta favorable to abortion rights. As we’ve said many times in this space, either you support a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health care choices…or you don’t. There is no third option.

The only thing Evans is accomplishing with this new spot is reminding voters that he’s NOT the abortion rights candidate in the race for CO-08. His attempts to inject nuance into the debate are pointless.

Evans is a bad candidate with an awful position on a critical issue, and there’s no way to explain that away. The worst thing Evans could have done is draw more attention to the subject of abortion rights.

Yet here we are.