Former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo is dropping her bid to reclaim the congressional seat she lost last year, her campaign said in a statement Friday.
“Unfortunately, I faced very strong resistance to my candidacy this cycle due almost entirely to the stigmatization of mental health in America,” the Democrat and pediatrician said.
Caraveo was one of several Democrats running to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans in the intensely competitive 8th Congressional District, a suburban seat north of Denver.
A former state legislator, she’d won the seat after it was created in 2022, only to lose to Evans last year after one term. Caraveo won and lost the seat by narrow margins, and the race is expected to again be one of the most contested next year.
Her departure from the race comes just five months after she entered it, and she’s the only one of the high-profile Democratic candidates in the race to bow out.
Though her time in Congress was brief, it was also rocky: Shortly before the 2024 election, she announced that she’d sought depression treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center. The Colorado Sun later reported that she twice needed hospital care after taking sleeping pills and sedatives, part of a pattern of incidents that traumatized her staff.
Those issues had prompted unease for Caraveo’s renewed candidacy among Democratic Party officials, particularly given the narrow margins in Congress and the outsized importance of the CD8 contest in swinging those margins to the left.
“I hope that one day we will see more acceptance and understanding of illnesses like depression, and that leaders at all levels will be able to support those in need in actions and not just words,” Caraveo wrote Friday.
She lagged well behind Evans and other Democrats in early fundraising, according to federal election data: By late June, she had just over $92,000 in the bank, $700,000 less than state Rep. Manny Rutinel, who entered the race a few months earlier.
State Rep. Shannon Bird had more than four times as much cash on hand as the former congresswoman, despite joining the race a month after Caraveo. Evans, meanwhile, had nearly $1.5 million in available cash.
In a statement Friday, Bird praised Caraveo as always fighting “to make life better for the next generation.”
In addition to Rutinel and Bird, Evans’ potential challengers still include state Treasurer Dave Young and Amie Baca-Oehlert, the former president of the state teacher’s union. The Democratic primary is set for June 2026.
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