September 12, 2024 11:13 AM UTC

Gabe Evans Fires Psycho Racist Political Director, Raising All The Questions

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) calls out Gabe Evans’ continuing silence:

After his political director was caught spewing conspiracy theories, racist and antisemitic rhetoric, and even called for political violence, Gabe Evans is refusing to denounce her disturbing rhetoric.

The staffer has worked with Gabe Evans since his first run for state house but, as the Colorado Times Recorder reported, “she’s been a relentless sharer of antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and calls for political violence for much, much longer.”

It’s no surprise Evans is staying silent – he himself is an extremist who has pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, cozied up to far-right groups that aim to rewrite the Constitution, and compared same-sex marriage to “incest, pederasty, and bestiality.”

DCCC Spokesperson Mallory Payne: “Gabe Evans allowed an antisemitic, racist, and violent conspiracy theorist to run his campaign until he got caught. His refusal to disavow this hate is utterly disqualifying. Coloradans deserve so much better.”

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Yesterday morning, reporter Erik Maulbetsch of the Colorado Times Recorder broke a story that by the end of the day had resulted in a major shake-up in the leadership of CO-08 GOP congressional candidate Gabe Evans’ campaign:

Gabe Evans’ Political Director Jessica Spindle has been working to get him elected to office for years, ever since his first run for statehouse in 2022. Evans is now challenging Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo for Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, in a race that’s expected to be one of the nation’s most competitive contests. She’s been on staff as Evans’ political director for his congressional campaign since April, but she’s been a relentless sharer of antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and calls for political violence for much, much longer… [Pols emphasis]

Jessica Spindle, who serves on the Weld RE-8 Board of Education in addition to working full-time as Evans’ political director, apparently has a long history on social media of embracing just about every discredited conspiracy theory that has made the rounds in the last decade from “Pizzagate” to Dominion Voting–along with musings about a coming civil war and a disturbingly unambiguous call to assassinate House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi:

In response, Stephanie Clarke of Stop Antisemitism Colorado slammed Evans for allowing “antisemitism to be normalized in our political discourse.”

“It is beyond appalling for an elected official and high-level political campaign staff member to share such blatant antisemitic imagery — and to include the caption “the most powerful pic I’ve ever seen,”’ is nothing short of outrageously inflammatory, offensive, and dangerous,” said Clarke. “The ‘Freedom for Humanity’ mural is one of the most notorious examples of modern antisemitic propaganda, perpetuating harmful stereotypes that have fueled hatred and violence against the Jewish people for generations.

“We will not stand by and allow antisemitism to be normalized in our political discourse. Congressional candidate Gabe Evans must not only condemn Jessica Spindle and her post, but also immediately terminate her from his campaign. Anything less would signal to the Jewish community that he believes this to be acceptable rhetoric. Further, we urge the Weld Re-8 School Board to launch an investigation into Board Member Spindle’s history of antisemitic posts, including propagating the blood libel and minimizing the universally recognized evil of Adolf Hitler. Someone who harbors such deep-seated venom toward any group of people has no place overseeing the education of Colorado’s children. This incident highlights the urgent need for accountability and education at every level of public service to ensure hate of any kind is never tolerated in our state or our democracy.”

As the political director and a full-time employee of Evans’ campaign, the only people who Spindle answered to in this position was Gabe Evans and Evans’ principal consultant Alan Philp–the longtime GOP operative who also oversaw Barb Kirkmeyer’s losing campaign for the same seat in 2022. Although Evans’ campaign has not made any specific statements as of this writing about Spindle’s extreme views, it’s very difficult to believe that her boss and Facebook friend Gabe Evans was not aware of them. If Evans really was unaware that the political director of his campaign is a frothing “QAnon” racist who called for the murder of Nancy Pelosi, it’s an incredible breakdown in vetting that raises its own fundamental questions about Evans’ judgment.

Absent clear evidence to the contrary, it’s much more believable that Gabe Evans was fully aware of the extreme political views of his political director, and those views are why she is Evans’ political director.

Or we should say Spindle was Evans’ political director, because a few hours after the Times-Recorder’s story was published, this happened:

Again, there has been no statement from Evans’ campaign about the apparent firing of one of his most senior campaign staffers, so we don’t yet know if Evans is going to claim ignorance of Spindle’s long record of racist rants and threats against elected officials who Evans would like to serve alongside in Congress. Either possibility is a major political problem for Gabe Evans. Was Evans clueless enough as to hire someone so overtly out of the mainstream as his political director, or is Spindle exactly what Evans wanted in a political director until her crazy politics blew up in Evans’ face?

Either way, the questions Spindle’s leadership position in Evans’ campaign raise do not go away with Spindle’s unceremonious firing. She was Evans’ top political staffer for a reason. Evans must either own Spindle’s extremism or explain how it’s possible that he was somehow ignorant of the crazy politics of his own political director.

Each time we consider that possibility, it seems less likely.