With less than three months until the 2024 November election, Democrats rush to clean up the damage they created before voters line up at the ballot box.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who secured the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee without a single primary vote, is running her campaign on “fixing” the economy and shutting down the southern border despite her administration wreaking havoc on these issues since they took office.
The same goes for other vulnerable Democrats who are facing reelection this year.
Democrat Yadira Caraveo (CO-08) is quietly attempting to clean up her district’s ongoing fentanyl problem, in which she ultimately created by co-sponsoring and voting for HB19-1263, legislation to de-felonize single-use drug possession for drugs such as fentanyl, even if the individual possessed enough fentanyl to kill thousands of people. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) signed the bill into law in 2019.
House Majority Forward, a nonprofit group associated with House Democrat leadership, recently launched an ad for Caraveo to try and moderate her position on legalizing fentanyl.
The ad claims Caraveo “broke with her own party to increase fentanyl crimes.” However, the group failed to cite any legislation.
HB22-1326 was proposed to increase penalties for the possession, manufacturing, and distribution of substances such as fentanyl. However, the National Republican Congressional Committee pointed out that the issue with this bill is that it only targets deaths associated with fentanyl overdoses and does nothing to address the trajectory of fentanyl-related deaths in the state.
In 2023, the Colorado Springs Gazette found that the legislation and the rising number of fentanyl overdoses can be chalked up to “increasingly permissive drug laws — foremost, the devastating decriminalization of hard drugs by the Colorado Legislature in 2019.”
Gabe Evans, the Republican running against Caraveo, witnessed firsthand the effects of his Democrat opponent’s progressive policies on the community.
“No amount of fluffy political advertisements can change the truth: Yadira Caraveo is to blame for the Colorado fentanyl crisis. It’s no wonder Coloradans are ready for change and ready for Gabe Evans, who has first-hand experience as a police officer fighting Caraveo’s fentanyl crisis,” NRCC Spokeswoman Delanie Bomar said in a statement.