By JESSE BEDAYN

DENVER (AP) — The stage at a recent rally for the presidential candidate Donald Trump in Colorado was designed with a clear message in mind: poster-sized photos of Hispanic men in prison—orange appeared from the stage as speaker after speaker before Trump stoked fear over the violent crimes he- have associated with illegal immigration.

“These illegal aliens, they deserve one thing,” Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert shouted to loud applause. “They deserve a ticket home!”

A glaring exception was Gabe Evans, a Republican running in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District. Evans said Democrats “opened our borders” but left any direct mention of immigration, bypassing light lines of applause.

As Evans tries to win a district that is nearly 40 percent Latino and could be pivotal in determining which party controls Congress, he is balancing the need to sound tough on immigration without resorting to threatening language.

Evans’ tiptoeing rhetoric — which came Sunday before a rally at Madison Square Garden that was laced with racist rhetoric from several speakers backing Trump — was matched with similar caution by Rep. Yadira Caraveo, the incumbent Democrat who is defending the seat. The 43-year-old pediatrician has taken a firmer stance on border security at a time when views on immigration are increasingly nuanced, including among Latinos.

The attention of the two candidates, both Hispanic, makes the 8th District a testing ground for both parties’ efforts to woo Latino voters. In places like this, the candidates walk a line between the pitfalls of overheated rhetoric and the dangers of appearing lax on border security.

“In an electorate that, by many other measures, is very polarized — people have picked their corners and it’s all a game of inches,” said Carlos Odio, co-founder of Latino-focused polling group Equis. “There’s just a large portion of the Latino electorate that remains swinging. The risk would be to not compete for it.”

A nuanced call

At the heart of both candidates’ outreach is the recognition that Latino voters are not a monolith and cannot be dismissed as invariably blue votes. While surveys have shown that they are I support Democrats more generallyTrump did gains among Hispanic votersaccording to a Pew Research Center analysis of polls of verified voters conducted in 2016 and 2020.

The “why” of all that has prompted heated debate among pundits and strategists, especially given the sometimes condescending rhetoric used by Trump and some Republicans. If these arguments are ever to be resolved, it won’t be until November 5th.

What has crystallized this year is an urgency among Democrats to retain the voters who have long helped bring them victories, and a sense among Republicans that there might be a real opportunity here.

The delicate drama played out vividly at a recent District 8 debate when moderator Kyle Clark asked Evans, an Army veteran and former police officer, what he meant when “Trump says immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.”

“I’ve always condemned any kind of racist statements,” said Evans, who was endorsed by Trump.

“Are you willing to say that Donald Trump’s statements are racist?” Clark asked.

“I have always condemned racist statements,” Evans repeated.

Asked if he supports Trump’s proposal to mass deport all immigrants in the U.S. illegally, including using the National Guard to do so, Evans was again evasive.

He gave more direct answers in an interview, rejecting the use of the National Guard to round up immigrants.

“I was in the National Guard,” he said. “No. There are so many different issues associated with this.”

The debate moderator addressed Caraveo, citing her previous call to get rid of border enforcement agencies and asking if she would still vote for it.

“My constituents don’t believe that, so I would vote against it,” Caraveo said.

“Is that still your position?” Clark asked.

“My job is to represent the 8th congressional district,” Caraveo said, stepping up from her side.

In an interview, Caraveo offered another reason for her middle ground approach: “People are upset that they’ve been here for 30 or 40 years and haven’t had the ability to legalize their status. And they think that, you know, they see it as people jumping ahead of them in line.”

A new approach

Caraveo and Evans are clear-eyed that some Latino voters still need convincing.

“I think that was a very good and very important wake-up call to say, ‘You can’t just talk to us about immigration,'” said Caraveo, who narrowly defeated Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer in 2022. “” You can not just think of us as a blue vote for you. You have to include us in all decision-making processes.”

When Evans appeared at a Hispanic forum in Denver recently, someone told him he was the first Republican ever to attend. “And I said, ‘That’s a crying shame,’ because that’s the work we have to do.”

Evans says Latino voters have been sold false hope.

“It’s that level of disconnect from the Democratic Party that’s starting to drive this change in the Hispanic community,” he said. “They are not capable of achieving American prosperity. They are not able to achieve generational wealth. They are not able to pass on a better quality of life to their children.”

Voters are listening

Caraveo’s balancing act plays well with Tanya Trujillo-Martinez, 47, a Democrat who says representing the district’s voters is “really her job, it’s not about going with her party.”

“For so long we’ve heard the rhetoric and ‘We want to hear your voice, bring your voice to the table,'” said Trujillo-Martinez, who recently attended a Latino forum in Greeley. “But as soon as I got to the table, the amp was turned off.”

Trump, she said, was wrong “not to engage Latinos respectfully, but to engage them as a tool.” She took notice, for example, when she recently referred to popular Latin singer Nicky Jam as “she.”

Evans’ rhetoric also landed with some Latino voters.