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11 11 24 Congressman Elect Gabe Evans talks about his victory in Colo's 8th District
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Preparing and thanksgiving feast on a budget this year, no matter how you plan to give thanks, FamilyDollar is here, with amazing deals on everything but the turkey. Check out all the ways you can save today, FamilyDollar, helping you do more. Right now on Colorado's Morning News, the nation had its eyes on Colorado's 8th Congressional District for several days as the race between Democratic incumbent Representative Yoderra Kaya Vayo and Republican State Representative Gabe Evans was too close to call. Yeah, but that all changed yesterday afternoon when Kaya Vayo conceded and Evans pulled ahead by nearly 2,600 votes. Joining us now on the KOA Common Spirit Health Hotline is State Representative and now newly elected Congressman of Colorado's 8th Congressional District, it's Gabe Evans. Congressman, thank you so much for your time this morning and congratulations. Thank you so much and thanks for having me on. Our KOA reporter Rob Dawson joining us on this conversation as well. He was covering your campaign election nights for the first few days of counting. It looked like Congressman Caraveo had a steady lead, but that flipped over the weekend. What was going through your head last week and did you ever start to question if this was going to go the other way? We always knew that this was going to be one of the closest races in the nation decided by probably a couple of thousand votes potentially less and so it lived up to its billing. In every respect this was drawn to be a very competitive district and I think that's a good thing because that means that representatives like myself are going to have to focus very heavily on making sure that they're paying attention to the constituents listening to the issues and doing a good job of representing the issues of this district. So as we watch the votes roll in, we knew kind of what the map looked like. We knew that it was going to be close and we also, you know, we're in communication with the clerk's offices as they're counting the votes and so we also knew kind of where the outstanding ballots were and we always knew there was a path to victory. Never really lost faith there, but you're right, it's absolutely nerve-wracking, just watching as the numbers came in until we finally got the victory yesterday afternoon. And good to talk with you and good to see you since Tuesday night, Gabe. When you take office, you'll be 39 years old, part of the millennial generation, as am I, and a growing number of people in the KOA audience are in the same boat and I think there's a lot of people I would assume that we both know that are still struggling maybe, especially from a financial standpoint and long-term goals of the American dream. Is it important for someone like you to be in Washington at this juncture of where we are in the country? Absolutely. I mean, again, as you just said, there's a lot of folks that are still struggling. And so I think, you know, having competent voices from some of the younger generations is absolutely critical to being able to address a lot of these issues and barriers to younger folks, being able to get out and get jobs, get housing, start to build equity, start to build their future, being able to create that generational wealth to hand off to their kids and their grandkids to make sure that future generations have a better starting point in life than we do. I mean, that's why I got to this point. You know, we've said my story several times, but my grandfather, my abuelito, immigrated to this country from Mexico for the American dream. He got that fighting in World War II with Patton's third army. That's how he got his American citizenship and I have his early writings where he talks about, you know, doing that work to lay the foundation to make a better life for future generations. I have two boys, eight and 12 years old. And I want to make sure that they inherit a good economy, that they have the opportunity to succeed and that everybody else in this district, their kid, their future generations has the opportunity to succeed, to buy homes, to be able to just afford the cost of living. And I think those are going to be some critical things to work on from, as you said, that millennial perspective in Congress. And Gabe on this Veterans Day, we want to say thank you for your service too. We really appreciate that, sir. And I want you to clear off something, you know, we all watched all these attack ads. One of them was saying that you were against abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. But that is not necessarily the case. Can you clarify that for us? No, that's never been the case. And that's never been the case since I took, you know, office. So I think the Supreme Court was very clear on this issue. They sent the issue back to the state. So I do not support a federal abortion ban, a national abortion ban here in the state of Colorado. We just enshrined abortion in the state constitution. So here in Colorado, you know, I think the states are allowed to regulate it. And it's legal in Colorado going so far as to be enshrined in the state constitution. And then when it comes to exceptions, I support exceptions for rape, for incest, for life, for the mother. And I have personal experience with all of those as a police officer. I worked with the victims of rape and incest. And let's not lose sight of the fact that they are victims of one of the most heinous crimes that one human being can commit on another human being. And so, of course, as a cop for 10 years, I stand for our victims. And I know that we need to have the flexibility to be able to take care of them in these tragic situations. And then the same thing with life of the mother. You know, my wife and I have had two live kids. We've had eight miscarriages. And then that second kid is, it was a high-risk pregnancy, where somewhere around the 22-week ultrasound, they told us, you know, I'm sorry, he's incompatible with life. So a ton of complications there. And I know we have to have the medical flexibility to be able to make health-based decisions that best protect life. For speaking with newly elected Congressmen of Colorado's 8th Congressional District, Gabe Evans, Congressman, when it comes to those who did not vote for you, what would you like to say to them? That's the exact same thing that I said as a police officer and a soldier for 22 combined years. You don't have to like me. You don't have to support me. And, you know, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to earn your vote, but I'm going to work my work as hard as I possibly can for you. So never hesitate to reach out to the office. Never hesitate to-- I mean, that's my job as a representative is to represent everyone in this district. And that's what I did as a police officer for 10 years. Nobody cared what political party I was. It wasn't a relevant fact. What mattered was I was there to work for everyone in the community as absolute best I could to be able to solve whatever issue it was that resulted to them in having to reach out to law enforcement. And I tell a story about my first year as a cop. It's my first year. I didn't know what I was really getting myself into. So I sit down with my sergeant at the end of that first year. And he says, "Gabe, you had a great year. You made 41 arrests, and you went to over 1,800 calls for service." And so what I took away from that is even as a police officer, 1,759 times out of 1,800-- I wasn't there to put handcuffs on somebody. I wasn't there to arrest somebody. I was there to solve a non-criminal matter. I was there to mediate. I was able to help people work through troubleshoot and figure out how to solve a problem, to make sure that our community was a good place to live and be able to connect them to resources. Again, it didn't matter what political party I was. It didn't matter what political party whoever had called was what mattered was we were working together to solve a problem in our community. And that's what I'll keep doing in Congress. All right. So after you set up your office in Washington, what's the first order of business? What are you thinking about in those first few days of the term? Well, again, it's making sure that we're representing the constituents and we're working on the things that they sent us to Washington Effect. We just talked about one. We know we've got a major cost of living problem. We've got to get our economy back on track. We've got to make sure that Colorado and the nation is an affordable place for folks to be able to continue to go out, buy groceries, put gas in their car, be able to invest in home ownership, things like that. That's one of the first orders of business. We also know there's a lot of concerns about the bork, making sure that we have a safe and secure America and Colorado. And so being able to work on securing the border, being able to work on making sure that law enforcement is empowered and has the tools to be able to keep us safe here in the country, here in Colorado specifically. I mean, again, we talked about it all through the campaign, but Colorado is the third most dangerous state in the nation right now. We are more dangerous than California and New York State, Illinois, Oregon, Washington State, one number two for teenagers, overdosing and dying on Sentinel. We're number one for bank robberies. Ten percent of all bank robberies across the nation are happening here in Colorado. And so as a police officer, I know how to fix these things. I know how to make sure that we are leveraging resources to equip our federal, state and local public safety partners to be able to address those things. And that's going to be another key issue from day one, once we get to Washington. Well, certainly a big job ahead, newly elected Congressman of Colorado's 8th Congressional District, Gabe Evans. We appreciate you joining us this morning, and good luck, sir. Thank you so much, thanks for the time. There's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank, you deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado, there's only one member FDIC. 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