There is a new campaign ad running in Colorado's 8th Congressional District. It shows a congressman hauling hay, dropping a bale into a trough, and talking straight to camera with cows shifting around behind him.

"They say my boots don't fit my suit. They are probably right. But I've worn these for 15 years, ranching here on my place in Weld, on patrol in Adams, in a Black Hawk over Colorado wildfires. … The last thing Washington needs is another suit."

The congressman is Gabe Evans. He owns three cows.

The standard his own campaign chose

Evans has called himself a "rancher" and a "beef producer" for his entire political career. When the Colorado Times Recorder pressed him on it last year, his campaign gave a specific defense: the U.S. Department of Agriculture counts people who earn more than $1,000 from agricultural products as ranchers or farmers. By that measure, his spokeswoman said, he qualifies.

That is a useful thing to have on the record, because it turns a vague argument about identity into a number anyone can check.

Evans' latest financial disclosure reports one line of earned income from agriculture: $345 in "Farm Profits (livestock and beef sales)" for last year.

That is $655 short of the line his own campaign drew. He did not meet the test he asked to be judged by.

Fifteen years of it

This is not a slip in one ad. It is the whole brand, and it goes back to before he was in Congress.

In his first legislative race in 2022, Evans put photos of himself with a Long Horn cow on his campaign website. Supporters of his opponent that year, Terry DeGroot — who manages his family's dairy operation, Colorado Cow — reportedly mocked him for owning pet cows rather than running an actual ranch.

It did not slow him down. During his 2024 congressional run and after he won, Evans posted a steady run of images across social media and his official congressional website: gazing at cows, in the dirt with his family and some cows, standing with cows over his shoulder, leaning on a cow pen gate.

Former Congressman John Salazar, a Democrat who had roughly 500 head of cattle when Colorado elected him in 2004, gave the Colorado Times Recorder the assessment that stuck last year: Evans is "all hat and no cattle."

Where the three cows actually went

The detail that matters most is what happened to the animals when Evans got to Washington.

When he entered Congress last year, Evans handed his three cows to a friend to look after. The cows now appear to be back on his Weld County property — which lets him keep claiming an agricultural tax break on the land.

So the herd left when he did not have time for it, appears to be back on land that carries an agricultural tax break, and features prominently in a campaign ad about how he is not a suit.

Evans' response to this line of questioning has been to call it a distraction. "While the Left wastes time and taxpayer dollars questioning the validity of the Evans' family farm, Congressman Gabe Evans is fighting serious battles to make Colorado a better place to live, work, and raise a family," his spokeswoman said last year.

What he does when agriculture is actually on the line

The 8th District is farm and ranch country north of Denver. Evans' record there is not the record of the man in the ad.

When 3,800 meatpackers at a JBS plant went on strike, Evans told their union he would stand with them — a month after cashing a $5,000 check from the company. Ninety thousand people in his district get food stamps; he voted to cut them and would not say how many of his own constituents lose out. He keeps posing for photos at Colorado businesses while voting eight times to protect the tariffs that are squeezing them.

He also spent more than $320,000 of taxpayer money advertising himself, $225,000 of it routed to his own campaign consultant. The image is the product. The record is the thing the image is covering.

His seat is one of the closest in the country — he won it in 2024 by about 2,500 votes — and Elon Musk's America PAC is now spending on his behalf, one of eighteen Republicans on this site getting that money. His opponent this year is Democrat Manny Rutinel.

What the filings show

Gabe Evans owns three cows and reported $345 in farm profits from "livestock and beef sales" on his most recent financial disclosure. His own spokeswoman said the federal standard for calling yourself a rancher is $1,000 in agricultural earnings, which puts him $655 below it. He is running an ad that says he has spent 15 years "ranching," and the cows he gave away when he went to Congress appear to be back on his Weld County land, where they support an agricultural tax break.

Source

Colorado Times Recorder, Gabe Evans Raises 3 Cows, But in a New Campaign Ad He Says He's 'Ranching' in Colorado, by Jason Salzman, September 8, 2026. Image via Colorado Times Recorder.