View this post on the web at [link removed]

Folks, we have less than 50 days until the November 3rd election, and so I wanted to make sure you heard from my friend, Manny Rutinel. Manny is running to flip Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, currently held by Republican Gabe Evans.
Manny has an incredible story, experience, and momentum on his side; I’m so excited for you to hear our conversation about what inspired him to run for Congress.
Donate generously to Manny’s campaign>>> [ [link removed] ]
Manny Rutinel’s story doesn’t start with his campaign for Congress; it starts with his mom, a single mother, who came to America in search of the American dream. Working hard for this country every single day but still struggled to thrive.
By age ten, Manny was filling out Medicaid and food stamp forms to get by.
In order to pay his way to college, he worked at McDonald’s and sold his blood at a plasma center so often that he still has a scar on his arm to this day.
He attended college, became an economist with the US Army Corps of Engineers, and started applying to law schools.
“My mom doesn’t always like it when I tell people this, but I started applying to law schools, and I called my mom. I said, mommy, mommy, I just got into Yale. And she goes, “You just got into jail?!” Because that’s the sort of that’s the sort of background I come from.”
Manny knows this fight for an affordable America, because it’s personal to him – it’s a lived experience and struggle he dealt with firsthand.
“Now these are the programs that Donald Trump and my Congressman are destroying to give tax breaks to their billionaire buddies.
I mean, they’re taking literal food out of the mouths of children, stripping health care from families to give tax breaks to their billionaire buddies. It is unconscionable.”
In October 2023, he decided to pivot his career and run for the Colorado House of Representatives, where he has since served the community of CO-HD-32.
Now, Manny is running for Congress in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District.
CO-08 is the state’s most Latino district; more than 40% of residents are Latino. It’s a working-class district – most of the jobs are blue-collar and come from local industry.
“It’s full of the most wonderful, kind, generous people in the world. And they just want to be able to have that opportunity to go to their job, clock in, and be able to put food on the table, and a roof over their child’s head.”
For those of you less familiar with Colorado, this district runs from the northern suburbs of Denver to almost outside Fort Collins. The largest population centers are Brighton, Commerce City, Greeley, Johnstown, Northglenn, and Thornton.
Manny reminds me a bit of myself when I started running for Congress. A thirty-something with a Representative who was absent from the district and lied about his commitment to accessible health care.
Manny is 31 years old, and he said himself, “I’ll probably be one of the lowest-wealth members of Congress when I get there”. With those two things, he already is different from a lot of folks running for Congress these days.
He feels he has an advantage as a young member of Congress, because he grew up on the traditional social media platforms – the places where a lot of young people are getting their news these days.
And when people think he’s too young to be running for Congress, he remembers the plaque his mom has on her wall that says, “It’s not the years in your life, it’s the life in your years.”
“And, you know, in the 31 years that I’ve been on this planet, I’ve mowed lawns, I’ve painted walls, I’ve worked at McDonald’s. I’ve sold my blood at a plasma center.
I was a substitute teacher, which is the hardest job I’ve ever had in my entire life.
I was an economist, I was an attorney, and a state representative.
And so I’ve got the experience as well as the energy and work ethic to be able to take on this fight.”
Manny has spent the last year and a half traveling across his district, hosting in-person town halls to hear directly from voters – something that Gabe Evans has refused to do.
“Whenever I go there, people tell me that they feel like they’ve been lied to.
They feel like Donald Trump and Gabe Evans said that they were going to lower gas prices, and instead they’ve started a forever war in Iran without any plans, putting American lives at risk and raising gas prices through the roof.
They said they were going to go after grocery prices. And instead, he has started a chaotic and corrupt tariff war with the entire world, raising prices on groceries, from meats to coffee to everything in between.
And they said they were going to fix the health care system, and instead they have taken health care from the most vulnerable families in our communities just to be able to provide tax breaks to the wealthiest people on the planet.
People feel like they’ve been lied to.”
Manny Rutinel is Gabe Evans’ worst nightmare! His story reflects the experiences of so many in this Colorado community, and he listens to their concerns and is present in their space. Gabe Evans must be held accountable for his absence and his votes to strip away these necessary programs from so many families.
Let’s talk about Medicaid: 1 in 3 Coloradans is on the Medicaid program, and CO-08 has the highest Medicaid propensity in the state, yet Gabe Evans just voted to take a trillion dollars out of the program, which will lead to thousands of Coloradans getting kicked off of their health care.
“I remember growing up and, you know, we would be so scared about not being able to afford things. And health care was one of those things.
Then, when we got Medicaid, and then when we had CHP+, these programs allowed us to survive. We wouldn’t have been able to go to the doctor. We would have waited until we had to go to an emergency room instead, because we wouldn’t have been able to afford the doctor.”
Manny brings up a good point that if folks cannot afford to go to the doctor and end up in the emergency room, those costs get passed down to everyone – not just families on Medicaid.
Everyone’s health care gets more expensive when hard-working Medicaid recipients can’t access preventive care and regular checkups.
Gabe Evans won CO-08 in 2024 by .8% – a margin of 2,449 votes against my former colleague Yadira Caraveo. Donald Trump won by about 1%.
When Manny says this is one of the closest races in the country, he is not exaggerating. Cook Political Report rates CO-08 a TOSS-up (R+0).
Y’ALL – Manny’s race is not a moonshot, okay? We have an amazing shot of flipping this seat and swearing in Manny Rutinel to the 120th Congress on January 3rd.
His campaign team has been working it—
“We have over a thousand volunteers that have signed up to knock doors and make phone calls.
I’m grateful that over 80,000 folks have chipped in an average of $27 for Colorado to help us raise the resources to be able to hire field organizers, pay for the fliers, put our message out on TV and digital, and that’s what it’s going to take.”
If you want to join the amazing community that Manny has built in Colorado’s 8th, please follow these recommendations below:
Visit his website [ [link removed] ]
Sign up to volunteer on Mobilize [ [link removed] ]
Donate generously to Manny’s campaign>>> [ [link removed] ]
And you know I always ask these candidates: what piece of legislation would you pass on day one if given the opportunity?
Manny said he would reverse the cuts against Medicaid and Social Security. He also added that he would need to pass some sort of anti-corruption effort.
I know that as we look across the map, there are some really key opportunities in districts that are just in the margin. BUT with a great candidate like Manny, who is exciting voters, we know we’ll be able to put this in the win column come November 3rd!!!!
Thank you for watching, for reading, and for supporting my friend, Manny Rutinel.
More to come,
Congresswoman Lauren Underwood
DCCC Red to Blue and Red Alert Co-Chair
Give to the full slate of R2B candidates, including Manny here>>> [ [link removed] ]

Unsubscribe [link removed]?