Rep. Manny Rutinel at the 2025 Roosevelt Dinner
I hope you voted in the June primary; I really do. Of the 233,945 eligible voters, 69,434 ballots were turned into Weld County, which means just under 30% of eligible voters voted in this primary election. Of those, 16,129 ballots were turned in by Democrats. Unaffiliated voters turned in the most ballots this time at 26,849. Thank goodness they seemed to have voted Democratic more than in the past. But Republicans still turned in more ballots than Dems. That being said, we have nearly four times more Democrats in Weld than voted in the primary. We have to do better if we hope to turn this country around, if we want to keep Medicaid and Medicare for our county and sustain our hospitals, especially rural ones. Voting is the only way we can secure environmental protections for our people, water to support our agriculture and our citizens, strong labor protections and unions, guaranteed rights for all our neighbors and protections for marginalized communities. Affordable housing and food costs are top-of-mind issues for everyone and transportation and childcare availability are essential. We need to uphold candidates who will fight for these. What can we do to get Democrats out to vote? The Unaffiliated voters are stepping up and may be the ones to help us win the day, but we all need to do our part to step up for democratic values.
There is some concern that the horrible SAVE act could be approved through Congress. That is a disaster for all of us and a blatant step toward voter suppression that will disenfranchise all but the wealthy. If you have not checked your voter registration recently, please do. You can check it at GoVoteColorado.gov. Be sure your address is up to date, especially if you have moved in the last two years or have not voted in the last election. If you do not have a passport, you might want to think about applying for one, especially if you’re a person who has changed names and don’t have a matching birth certificate (such as married people who take a spouse’s name). Know where your birth certificate and social security cards are.
Even with GOP dirty tricks, we have real hope for elections this year in many areas. I did not find many surprises in the June primary, but some interesting trends. It is looking really favorable for Manny Rutinel in CD8.
The final votes for CD8 have been posted overall by state and by county. Democratic candidates for CD8, in total, got 80,274 votes (Manny got 50,435 of those). For the November election we can hope the other Democrat votes will be cast for Manny Rutinel.
The single Republican candidate, Gabe Evans, got 48,112 votes.
Now, looking at the CD 8 votes in Adams and Weld, which are the majority of CD8. The total vote count for Adams’ Democratic candidates was 56,188 votes. (35,640 for Rutinel alone).
The Total Republican votes totaled 23,839 (for their one candidate, Gabe Evans).
That is a total Adams County vote difference of 20,548 in Democrat’s favor.
The Weld votes were very close. There were 21,116 Democratic votes cast in Weld, and 21,981 Republican votes cast in Weld. So, 735 fewer Dem votes in Weld were cast than Republican votes. Even with a small number of fewer Dem votes in Weld, Democratic votes in CD8 (for all candidates) were 32,162 more than Republican votes. Unaffiliated voters are making most of this happen. Granted, as the only GOP candidate and an incumbent, fewer votes may have been cast because of that, and that may not hold for November. But 32,000+ more Democratic votes will be hard to beat and will most likely insure a win for Rutinel. If this trend holds for the election in November, we’ll have a new congressperson, and Gabe Evans will be out of a job.
In looking at other vote trends, CD4 will be a battleground. Final vote totals released by the SOS by county show total votes for Republican, Boebert, at over 92,000 and over 72,000 for Laubacher. Democratic votes for CD4 in Weld County were 4,609. Republican votes were 9,243. Larimer County had 13,777 Democratic votes and 11,572 Republican votes.
Douglas County, the largest part of CD4, shows 42,986 Dem votes and 42,055 Republican votes.
Total votes for these CD4 counties show Laubacher winning the biggest counties of Douglas and Larimer but losing nearly 4800 votes in Weld. CD 4 is a huge district with the entire east side of Colorado and a good portion of northern Weld and Larimer. The other counties together account for the rest. But by winning the two biggest sections of counties in her district Laubacher has a chance. Getting out the vote in key areas before November will take a lot of work.
Our other congressional district in Weld is CD2. A slim section of west Weld is in a very small part of CD2 which also includes Boulder and Larimer counties and some mountain counties as well. Our Dem candidate in CD2 is Joe Neguse. The CD2 section in Weld is about 7000 voters. CD2 is probably the bluest district in Colorado and Joe will likely continue to be the representative there.
House districts could also be flipped this year. Democratic candidate Tommy Butler got more votes in the primary than Republican and incumbent, Ryan Gonzales. More Dem votes were cast in HD19 than Republican votes. The other House Districts will have challenges, but these races are winnable if we can just get people out to vote in greater numbers than have ever been seen.
We must work hard to get the message out that the falsehoods on voter integrity spread by Donald Trump are absolutely not true. And we must contact our representatives to stop the SAVE ACT. Poor voter turnout always favors Republicans. That is why we must get people out to vote. Dems will win if we have insurmountable turnout. The Republicans have helped us this year by putting up the most cringe, fringe candidates imaginable. We must take advantage of this and get people out to vote, and to vote blue.
You can help. We need you to work for the candidates of your choice in your district, or others, to canvass, mail postcards, flood social media, engage your neighbors and friends. Will you help us? Another way you can help is by coming or at least donating to our big fundraiser and dinner. August 8th is the Roosevelt Dinner and Silent Auction, and our speaker is Congressman Brandon Boyle of Pennsylvania. If you can’t come, you can still donate to the fundraiser or buy a ticket for a volunteer or student. We also need auction items for our silent auction if that is something you could do to help with the fundraiser. We always need volunteers, and we really need office coverage volunteers for several days, if that is something you can do. Take heart and know we can make positive change in Weld, Colorado, and our country, one vote, one volunteer at a time.
Bev Wallace, WCDP Vice Chair
Candidate website links:
Amanda Gonzalez, Secretary of State
Jena Griswold, Attorney General
Weld County Democratic Party links: