Voters in Colorado’s tossup 8th Congressional District appeared be leaning toward reelecting Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo over her Republican challenger, state Rep. Gabe Evans, based on the initial, unofficial returns.

Serving her first term in Congress, Caraveo led Evans by about 2 points, 49.7% to 47.8%, in the early results, posted shortly after polls closed Tuesday night at 7 p.m.

Third-party candidates trailed in low single digits.

Stretching from the Adams County suburbs on the north side of Denver up to Greeley, the closely divided 8th CD has been home to one of the most competitive — and expensive — House races in the country since its creation two years ago.

After winning the seat by just over 1,600 votes in 2022, Caraveo, a pediatrician and the first Latina to represent Colorado in Congress, is facing a challenge from Evans, an Army veteran and former police officer.

The seat is considered crucial to determining which party controls the House of Representatives. The two sides have spent heavily hammering the opposition’s nominee, pouring more than $20 million into a near-constant barrage of mostly negative TV and digital ads and mailers, though campaign finance reports show the Democrats and their allies have outspent the Republicans and theirs.

Heading into the November election, Republicans hold a slim seven-seat majority in the House, meaning Democrats only have to flip four seats to take the gavel next year.

The contest is the only Colorado House race rated as a toss-up by national election analysts, and scant polling in the district has indicated it’s a dead-even race. A poll released a month ahead of Election Day showed the candidates tied at 44% apiece, while a survey conducted by the same firm at the end of October found Caraveo with a slim lead over Evans, 48% to 46%, within the poll’s margin of error.

In the barrage of ads that have flooded screens since Labor Day, Democrats have attacked Evans over his positions on abortion rights, while Republicans have attempted to saddle Caraveo with concerns surrounding immigration and crime.

Caraveo and her supporters have spent millions calling Evans “too extreme” for Colorado, repeatedly focusing on his support for the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and highlighting comments he made as a teenager opposed to same-sex marriage, before it was legalized in another Supreme Court decision.

Other ads run by Caraveo and her Democratic allies lump Evans in with U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert and other GOP figures, including former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Evans.

At the same time, Evans and his fellow Republicans blast Caraveo for “making things worse,” linking her to the border crisis, crime and the flood of fentanyl into the district. Some of the GOP’s ads have pictured the Democrat alongside President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Underlining the importance of the race on the national map, Republican and Democratic House leaders have campaigned with the candidates multiple times, including recent visits from House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, respectively.

Caraveo, the incumbent, outraised and outspent Evans, according to campaign finance filings. Through Oct. 16, the Democrat reported raising $7.3 million and spending nearly $6 million, leaving $1.3 million in her campaign’s bank account. That compares to $2.3 million raised by Evans, who spent $1.9 million and had $363,000 heading into the campaign’s final weeks.

In a first for a Colorado congressional race, both Caraveo and Evans count Mexican immigrants among their forbearers — her parents and his grandparents. The district was drawn to include the highest share of Hispanic residents of any House seat in the state, making up roughly 40% of its population and a somewhat smaller share of the electorate.

Evans hopes to benefit from winning an endorsement from the district’s former Libertarian nominee, who dropped out and threw his support behind the Republican after Evans signed on to a pledge to adhere to a number of principles drawn up by the minor party’s leaders.

The move is meant to prevent the Libertarian from siphoning off votes from Evans, under the theory that the conservative-leaning third party’s candidates can cost Republicans the election in extremely close races.

Colorado’s GOP said that’s what happened two years ago when the Libertarian candidate received about 4% of the vote in the 8th CD race — about twice what the party’s candidates typically draw — while Caraveo defeated Republican Barb Kirkmeyer with a margin of less than 1%.