Former McDonald's worker Rutinel challenges Rep. Evans for Colorado's 8th

Rutinel says his Colorado tax credits cut child poverty by nearly 40%

Manny Rutinel, the Democratic nominee in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, has built his campaign biography around the two years he spent working at McDonald’s while finishing high school, and is asking voters in the swing district to weigh his experience with food stamps and Medicaid forms when they consider his challenge to Rep. Gabe Evans.

In an interview with the Guardian, Rutinel said he was raised by a single immigrant mother whose family lost their home to foreclosure during the 2008 economic recession. He was finishing his second year working at McDonald’s when he graduated high school, the Guardian reported. After graduating, he worked multiple jobs through college while taking community college courses, selling blood plasma so often that it left a scar on his arm, according to the Guardian. He went on to earn an associate’s degree and a bachelor’s degree, serve as an economist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and then earn a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and a law degree from Yale before entering politics.

Now a state representative, Rutinel has co-sponsored more than 400 bills, the Guardian reported, including legislation that expanded Colorado’s earned income tax credit and created a family affordability tax credit and a child tax credit. According to Rutinel, those measures together reduced child poverty in Colorado by nearly 40%, giving the state the lowest childhood poverty rate in the country.

Rutinel said his record on affordability is what distinguishes him from Evans. He cited a family of four whose health insurance premiums rose from about $500 a month in 2025 to $2,000 a month in 2026 for the same plan. He pointed to Medicaid coverage losses tied to what Trump has called his “big, beautiful” bill — which he said will affect hundreds of thousands of Americans and has already put several Colorado hospitals at risk of service cuts or closures.

“I’m the son of a single mom who came to America in search of that American dream, and we worked hard every single day for this country, but we still struggled,” Rutinel said. “I remember being 10 years old the first time I started filling out food stamp and Medicaid forms, and those are the same programs that Donald Trump and my congressman Gabe Evans are destroying right now to get tax breaks to their billionaire buddies.”

Evans has drawn scrutiny in his first term. The Guardian reported that Evans faced questions over whether he received an endorsement from Trump in 2024 after saying that questions about whether the 2020 election was stolen “aren’t yes-no questions.” Evans has not held an in-person town hall since his election, the Guardian reported.

Earlier this year, UFCW Local 7 president Kim Cordova accused Evans of privately telling meatpacking workers in the district that he would stand with them, then reneging on that promise when they went on strike and remaining silent, the Guardian reported. UFCW Local 7 represents workers in the district.

Rutinel said he has held town halls throughout the district and heard from voters who feel misled by the Trump administration’s affordability promises. “I think folks feel like they’ve been lied to, and what they’re looking for are leaders who have the lived experience of working people, understand their struggles, and have a track record of fighting for them,” Rutinel said.

On campaign finance, Rutinel said his campaign has not accepted money from corporate PACs, while Evans has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate PACs that Rutinel said are “driving up the costs of our groceries, our healthcare, our gas.” The Evans campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Guardian.

Colorado’s 8th District is rated a toss-up by the Cook Partisan Index. Evans won the seat in 2024 by roughly 2,500 votes.