Epstein, Trump and trucks: Why political ads for a single Colorado race are flooding TV screens

Millions of dollars in spending have poured into north and central Colorado, flooding television commercial breaks with near-ceaseless political advertisements as the razor-tight race for a swing congressional seat enters its final three weeks.

Coloradans who tuned into a “Dateline” rerun Monday afternoon, for instance, would have been treated to a firehose of ads about U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, the Republican fighting to keep his 8th Congressional District seat, or his Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Manny Rutinel.

While other political ads sometimes break in, no race has received as much screen time as the 8th District. One-time colleagues in the state House, Evans and Rutinel are locked in one of the most expensive congressional races in the country, drawing in vast sums from outside groups and filling what feels like every commercial break with grave voices warning about the loss of jobs, healthcare and pickup trucks.

One ad shown Monday afternoon, featuring Adams County District Attorney Brian Mason, hit Evans for opposing efforts to release federal records about Jeffrey Epstein. (Evans did not support a petition that would’ve forced a vote to release the files; after the discharge petition succeeded in forcing that vote, Evans and nearly every other Republican then supported the release.)

In the next commercial break, an Evans ad criticized Rutinel’s votes on two 2024 criminal justice bills: one that would have tightened criminal penalties on certain sex crimes, and another that changed aspects of the state’s criminal competency system. (Rutinel voted against the first and in favor of the second; the second bill had firm bipartisan support, including from a Republican who later appeared in a campaign ad with Evans.)

“Dateline” ended with three back-to-back ads: There was Evans, leaning against the back of a truck, shaking his head as four men ripped on Rutinel. Then, a man and woman criticized Rutinel’s environmentalist past.

The final ad in the trio featured Mason, back again, accusing Evans of “protecting child predators.”

The ads are intentionally ceaseless. Colorado’s relatively new 8th Congressional District, which extends just north of Denver and includes parts of Weld, Adams and Larimer counties , is the most competitive federal seat in the state. The contest was decided by fewer than 3,000 votes in its first two elections, in 2022 and 2024.

In 2024 alone, $29 million in outside spending poured into the race. That was the third most of any House race that year, according to Open Secrets . The most expensive race this century was a 2018 Georgia contest, which cost more than $82 million.

In a district of more than 757,000 people , the avalanche of ads aims to influence the relatively small number of people who will ultimately decide the race, experts said. Every other viewer serves as something like collateral damage.

“I think a lot of people are not persuaded by the ads,” said Paul Teske, a public affairs professor at the University of Colorado Denver. “Having said that, in a district with fewer than 3,000 votes winning the last couple of races, maybe you’re trying to convince 10,000 people to be part of those 3,000 who swing the race.”

More than $12 million in outside spending, much of it focused on producing or publishing ads, has been spent in the race since Rutinel won the Democratic primary in June.

Millions more have been deployed by the campaigns: Rutinel had raised $4.3 million as of June 30, compared to nearly $5.4 million for Evans. Those are undoubtedly sharp undercounts. Neither campaign has had to disclose updated financials since the end of June .

Campaign finance reports covering the period from July 1 through September are due Thursday.

The race’s $9.34 million in media spending during most of September was the second highest of any race in the country, behind only Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, according to the Wesleyan Media Project .

Evans has been backed by super PACs linked to President Donald Trump and billionaires Elon Musk and Charles Koch, among others. Rutinel has received outside support from prominent liberal groups, plus an organization that backs candidates with a science background and a Colorado-based group that has not yet reported any donors this cycle but was previously funded by a dark money outfit. Both candidates have also received substantial support from PACs tied to congressional leadership for both parties.

The steady stream of negative advertising in the 8th District race follows a time-worn path, said Robert Preuhs, political science chair at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“A lot of what we’re seeing in the 8th is what we’re seeing in a lot of close races nationwide,” he said. “You want to mobilize your base and cast your opponent as a threat.”

For Evans, that means painting Rutinel as a dangerous leftist “radical,” while for Rutinel, it means casting Evans as a loyal patsy for Trump. Each man blasted his opponent along those lines during their only debate last week , and the theme has held through the avalanche of ads in Colorado.

Teske said that barrages of negative ads can often drive down turnout: Voters will decide that both candidates are crooks, he said, and throw their hands up. Still, he expected the race — and the election as a whole — to have high participation.

The advantage of wall-to-wall negative advertising, Preuhs said, likely rests with the Democrats — even if it annoys the electorate as a whole. They are the party out of power nationally, and they can assign blame to the GOP brand for the vexing issues — the Iran war, stubbornly high prices and unpopular tariffs — that Trump has yet to fix.

“That is the concern of every Republican,” Preuhs said, “that Trump is a bit of an albatross in this election even though he’s not on the ballot.”

That is certainly the pro-Rutinel ad strategy — tie Evans to Trump while highlighting his own working-class bona fides. Evans and his backers, meanwhile, have worked to highlight Rutinel’s past contentious positions and votes while boosting Evans’ history in law enforcement and the military.

They will continue to make their cases until Nov. 3, when the political ads finally go silent.

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