September 10, 2024 11:00 AM UTC

What A Nice New Libertarian Friend Gabe Evans Just Made

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• by: Colorado Pols

Last week, freshman state Rep. Gabe Evans, running for Congress in Colorado’s ultra-swing CO-08 against incumbent Rep. Yadira Caraveo, announced that the Libertarian candidate in the race Eric Joss was pulling out and endorsing Evans–a potentially significant development after Joss received a greater number of votes in the 2022 election than Caraveo’s margin of victory over her then-challenger, state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer. The voluntary withdrawal of the Libertarian in this race and endorsement of Gabe Evans has parallels to the withdrawal of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. from the presidential race and endorsement of Donald Trump–even more so in Colorado, where the local Libertarians controversially tried to back RFK Jr. over their party’s actual nominee.

But if you scroll all the way to the bottom of today’s Unaffiliated newsletter from the Colorado Sun’s political newsguys Jesse Paul and Brian Eason, you’ll find the rest of the story about Eric Joss, and it’s unflattering enough to invite the question of who on Earth would welcome this man’s endorsement:

“Eric, from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate you and I look forward to continuing this working relationship that we’ve built,” Evans said during a news conference.

But Evans, an Army veteran and former policy officer, may find political danger in tying himself too closely to Joss. [Pols emphasis]

A look at the Libertarian’s social media feed shows it has some recent anti-police, anti-trans and misogynistic posts. A sampling of what he has shared on X over the past few months:

Although Eric Joss’ Twitter/X feed has been locked, screenshots are available of many of his greatest social media hits under the pseudonym “Libertarian Pastafarian,” including generous portions of racism, sexism, and (key problem for former police officer Gabe Evans here) a profound dislike for the cops:

Libertarians once had a reputation for live-and-let-live tolerance as long as taxes stay low and their other weird grievances were at least acknowledged, but Eric Joss isn’t that type of Libertarian either:

U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood, posted a photo in which she posed with state Reps. Lindsey Daugherty and Brianna Titone, state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger and Jefferson County Commissioner Tracy Kraft Tharp. The caption said “so great to join these women at their monthly town hall.” Joss replied “I only count four,” a reference to the number of women in the photo. Titone is transgender.

Replying to a picture of a woman with a heavily tattooed face and the caption “what’s her job,” Joss replied: “Jizz target.”

Based mostly on the results in the close 2022 election, bean-counters are throwing a few beans in Evans’ direction after this endorsement on the assumption that Joss would pull support from Evans if he remained on the ballot. But with Joss’ endorsement in Evans’ pocket, the best thing Evans can do with Eric Joss is persuade him to go into hiding and stop Tweeting. The more voters learn about the Libertarian candidate they might have considered voting for instead of the MAGA-branded Gabe Evans, the more questions they’ll have for Evans now that they’re on the same team. If the parties were reversed, Republicans would demand a Sister Souljah-style repudiation.

Evans’ reaction: “We don’t agree with every view of every one of our supporters any more than any other candidate does,” said Alan Philp, Evans’ spokesman.

This is the response of a flack who knows he has a problem and wants to move on. The problem is that Gabe Evans’ campaign is much too reliant on the uniforms he wears in campaign ads to simply dismiss Joss’ contempt for law enforcement, contempt that echoes the anti-police protesters Evans regularly demonizes.

The more helpful you consider Joss’ endorsement to be for Gabe Evans, the more accountable Evans should be for Eric Joss’ record.