State Republican Gabe Evans held a one-percentage-point lead over Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo late Saturday in Colorado’s 8th Congressional Districtbut the winner of the race — which could determine whether the GOP has unified control of the federal government — likely won’t be clear until Thursday.

That’s because there are thousands of ballots in the district that require “healing,” which is when a voter needs to provide identification, add a missing signature to the ballot, or address why their signature doesn’t match the what is registered with the state before the vote. can be counted.

The deadline for voters to heal their ballots is Wednesday, and both Democrats and Republicans are flooding the district to make sure every vote is counted. County clerks have until Thursday to finish counting ballots cast in the 2024 election.

Adams County Clerk Josh Zygielbaum, a Democrat, said Saturday morning that there were 4,262 8th District ballots in his county that required curing before they could be counted.

As of Friday night in Weld County, there were about 3,200 ballots in need of healing countywide, meaning not all of them were thrown in the District 8 race.

Because the list of voters who must have their ballots cured is public, each county will protect voter privacy by withholding between 500 and 1,000 regular ballots to mix with the cured ones when they are counted Thursday. This will help anonymize ballots that have been cured.

All other Weld County ballots have been counted. In Adams County, Zygielbaum said late Saturday that “there are a few thousand left to scan.”

Zygielbaum said Saturday morning that the county still has about 17,000 votes to count in District 8. Results for 12,000 of those were released by 7 p.m. Saturday.

Caraveo won the Adams County 8th District vote 103,873-82,512 Saturday night, while Evans won the Weld County 8th District vote 68,540-46,458.

There is a small part of Larimer County that is also in the district. Evans was winning that slice Saturday night, 7,238-5,757.

The overall vote Saturday night was 158,290 for Evans to 156,088 for Caraveo, or Evans with 49 percent of the vote to Caraveo’s 48 percent. Evans led by 2,202 votes.

Caraveo, Colorado’s first Latina elected to Congress, is seeking a second term. Evans, an Army veteran and former police officer, is also Latino.

republicans he needed to win six more US races on Saturday night to retain his majority in the lower house of Congress in Washington, DC. They have already won control of the US Senate and Republican Donald Trump will be president.

Both Democrats and Republicans are likely to launch a mad dash in the 8th District to convince voters to heal their ballots. The list of voters whose ballots need to be cured is public, so these people will be inundated with phone calls and door knocks.

Local election officials should notify voters if their ballots require curing. Voters can also check if their vote has been accepted by look up their voter registration on the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office and clicking on “ballot information.”

If your ballot needs to be cured, you can find out how to do it through your county clerk or by checking these state resources:

Colorado allows voters to heal their ballots via text message. They must to obtain their voter identification number then text “COLORADO” to 28683.

While the delay in the 8th District vote count is frustrating to some observers, it is not unusual for close races in Colorado to take more than a week to decide as every vote is counted.

Colorado’s 8th District race was heavily focused on immigration. About 40% of the district’s population is Latino. Both candidates have promised to get tough on illegal border crossings, but have disagreed on how to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.

Abortion also played a central role in the contest, with Caraveo attacking Evans for his unclear and apparently contradictory statements on the subject. Evans and Republicans, meanwhile, attacked Caraveo over her vote as a state lawmaker to defelonize fentanyl. is running a barrage of ads criticizing this decision.

Almost $29 million was spent by the super-PAC on the race, most of it to benefit Caraveo. That eclipses the $16.6 million spent by super PACs in the district in 2022, which was the first district election created during Colorado’s 2021 redistricting process.

Other races in Colorado that won’t be determined until next week

Caraveo had a lead over Evans until Friday night, when election officials in Weld County, a Republican stronghold, released the results of about 27,000 ballots he had tabulated that day.

This data dump also affected two state races.

In House District 50, centered in Greeley, Republican Ryan Gonzalez took the lead over Democratic state Rep. Mary Young. She admitted as a result.

“Serving my community for the past five years has been one of the greatest honors of my life, and I am proud of the very significant legislative accomplishments I have been able to achieve,” Young said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, we did not win this very close election. I want to congratulate Ryan Gonzalez and wish him well in his first legislative session.”

In House District 19, which straddles the Weld-Boulder county line, former state Rep. Dan Woog, an Erie Republican, took the lead over first-time Democrat Jillaire McMillan. The district is currently represented by Democratic state representative Jennifer Parenti, who did not run for re-election.

The race had actually been called Friday by the Associated Press in McMillan’s favor, but the news outlet — which The Colorado Sun relies on for election projections — dropped the call when Woog took over.

Woog was leading by 208 votes Saturday afternoon.

The outcome of the race won’t be clear until Thursday, after ballot counting is done in Weld and Boulder counties. Boulder County Clerk Molly Fitzpatrick, a Democrat, estimated there are about 500 ballots in the 19th District that do not need to be cured but still need to be counted, in addition to the 400 ballots in the district awaiting curing. There are also an unknown number of damaged or overseas/military voter ballots across the county that have yet to be tabulated.

Finally, in House District 16 in Colorado Springs, Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Vigil trailed her Republican challenger, Rebecca Keltie, by just 21 votes Saturday night.

The outcome of that race is also unlikely to be known until Thursday, given the narrow margin and ballots left to heal.
If McMillan and Vigil lose, Democrats lose they lose their supermajority in the Colorado House of Representativeswhich they have had for two years. Losing the supermajority would require Democrats to work with Republicans to send constitutional amendments to the ballot and override any vetoes by Gov. Jared Polis.