May 16, 2024 10:19 AM UTC

Janak Joshi is Having a Moment in CO-08

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• by: Colorado Pols

Janak Joshi is having himself a moment.

The former state legislator from Colorado Springs is trying to make a political comeback in northern Colorado (CO-08), and he might just have a shot at pulling an upset in June. After just barely making it onto the ballot via the Republican congressional assembly process (literally by one vote), Joshi is riding a wave of momentum this week in his bid to defeat Republican State Rep. Gabe-ish Evans for the right to challenge incumbent Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo in the fall.

Joshi, who we have compared to the Simpsons character “Dr. Nick” due to his, um, questionable history as a physician, is up with his first television ad of the cycle.

It’s not bad:

Joshi’s ad is dropping in the same week in which he was endorsed by the State Republican Party, joining Ron Hanks (CO-03), Lauren Boebert (CO-04), and Dave Williams (CO-05) as the “official” slate of 2024 Republican congressional candidates. That endorsement process, driven by Williams in his dual role as State Party Chair and candidate for Congress, was questionable at best and included a sharp elbow into Evans’s midsection:

While the Party would ultimately support Gabe Evans if he wins the Republican Primary election, his refusal to disclose key issue positions and any possible history of criminal or ethics violations, plus his ties to the fake conservative organization Americans for Prosperity (which raised 70 million to defeat President Donald J. Trump) make him much more likely to be defeated by the Democrats through his inability to convince voters that he is the best choice for CD8, especially with libertarians vowing to run a spoiler candidate against him. [Pols emphasis]

Moreover, Gabe Evans refuses to explain why his first official vote in the legislature was to elect a radical Democrat Speaker of the House over his Republican colleague who was the clear alternative, or why he voted against another Republican colleague’s bill (HB24-1023) that would have stopped unconstitutional civil asset forfeiture while overturning so-called “Red Flag” gun control.

Janak Joshi on the other hand, has a 100% record in defending taxpayers against out-of-control government spending while also being a leader to secure our border, finish the wall, protect the unborn, and defend the Second Amendment against weak Republicans and radical Democrats like Joe Biden and Yadira Caraveo.

Joshi is benefitting from an internal Republican battle in which Williams is attacking Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a right-wing group spending big money to help both Evans in CO-08 and Williams’s opponent in CO-05 (Jeff Crank). This isn’t Joshi’s fight, but he can and will be able to close his communications with GOP Primary voters by touting the official State Party seal of approval while Evans is forced to explain why he was not selected instead.

As POLITICO explains further:

This is the first year that the state GOP is issuing endorsements in contested primaries, and Evans told Score that he doesn’t think that “seeking the endorsement of a state party that’s trying to pick winners and losers within the Republican primary is the best way to show that we’re trying to bring unity and those big tent principles.”

In order to get the state party’s endorsement, candidates had to fill out a questionnaire that, in part, asked if they support a federal abortion ban, if the U.S. should continue sending aid to Ukraine and if they “denounce” Americans for Prosperity, which spent against former President Donald Trump in the GOP primary. (AFP has endorsed Evans.) It’s unclear if the state party will ultimately endorse in the primary, and Evans touted support from district delegates as a sign of his local support.

“Unfortunately, when the party is busy sending surveys to gauge the purity of candidates, that’s not actually doing the behind the scenes logistics and infrastructure that’s necessary to be able to go win some of these battleground seats, so campaigns end up having to do that work,” Evans said. “It’d be great if we could all get on the same page. … But if they’re not going to do it, fortunately, I’m pretty well equipped to be able to build an organization that’s going to go out and do that anyway, and go flip this seat.”

That last sentence is a bit of an exaggeration. Evans has not been particularly impressive on the fundraising front — raising just $251k in Q1 despite being the NRCC’s anointed candidate — and he’ll need more help from AFP if he is to fend off Joshi in June. We won’t see another federal finance report for CO-08 until after the June 25th Primary Election, so it will be difficult to accurately gauge the resources of each candidate in the final weeks of the campaign, but Evans’s weak fundraising gives Joshi an opening. Joshi’s campaign has been almost entirely self-funded; if he is willing and able to spend more of his own money, it might not take a huge sum in order for Joshi to be the first to cross the finish line.

Regardless, the fact that Joshi is turning the CO-08 Republican Primary into a real race is a definite problem for Evans and national Republicans who were hoping to oust Caraveo in 2024. Evans is one of those candidates who looks better on paper than he does in real life; now he’s going to need to spend everything he’s got, and move even further to the right, just to make it through June.