Former state Rep. Shannon Bird has qualified for the Democratic primary ballot in Colorado’s hotly contested 8th Congressional District by submitting a sufficient number of petition signatures, state election officials said this week.

The winner of the Democrats’ June 30 primary will attempt to unseat first-term U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a Fort Lupton Republican and former state lawmaker, in the most closely divided U.S. House district in the state.

Bird, who resigned from her Westminster-based legislative seat at the beginning of the year to campaign full-time, joins Evan Munsing, a Thornton investment executive and Marine veteran, in the primary. Munsing, a first-time candidate, learned last week that he was the first candidate in the state for any office this year to qualify for the ballot by petition.

“I’m tremendously grateful for every voter, volunteer, and member of our team who circulated and signed our petition,” Bird said in a statement. “Together, we’ll continue to show up in every corner of this district and elect a congresswoman who will champion our needs, not the wishes of the president.”

The 8th CD, Colorado’s newest House seat, hugs State Highway 85 from the northern part of the Denver metro area to Greeley, covering parts of Adams, Larimer and Weld counties. Created after the 2020 census, the district contains more Hispanic voters than any other congressional district in the state, at about a 40% share, and has proven to be the most competitive. Both the 2022 and 2024 elections were decided by less than 1 percentage point and ranked among the most expensive races in the country.

The district’s Democratic primary field is expected to grow in the coming weeks with the addition of state Rep. Manny Rutinel, D-Commerce City, an environmental attorney and the fundraising leader among Democrats hoping to challenge Evans.

Rutinel’s campaign is circulating petitions but by late Friday hadn’t turned them in to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office for signature verification. He has until March 18 to submit completed forms.

Colorado congressional candidates must turn in 1,500 valid signatures from fellow party members who live in the district in order to make the ballot. Election officials said 1,915 of the 2,461 signatures submitted by Bird met requirements.

Candidates can get on the state’s primary ballot by submitting petition signatures, participating in the parties’ caucuses and assemblies, or taking both routes. Candidates who make the ballot by petition need only get the votes of 10% of the delegates to their respective assemblies, but if they’re only seeking the nomination by assembly, they need 30% support to qualify.

Bird, Munsing and Rutinel have all said they plan to go both routes, though candidates have until the day of the assembly in late March to decide whether to face delegates. Two other Democrats, Denis Charles Abrate and Daniel Hassler, are also circulating petitions in the district.

Evans is also gathering petition signatures and plans to go through the GOP assembly process, Republican officials have told Colorado Politics. He’s facing a primary challenge from Commerce City GOP activist Adam DeRito, who has struggled to raise funds since declaring his candidacy in November.

At the start of the year, campaign finance filings showed that Evans had about $2.5 million in the bank, Rutinel reported $1.2 million on hand, Bird had a little over $760,000, and Munsing was sitting on about $215,000. DeRito trailed, with less than $10,000 in contributions last year, while the other Democrats running in the district didn’t report raising or spending anything.

A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee took a shot at Bird’s decision to step down from the legislature in a statement to Colorado Politics about her qualification for the ballot.

“Out-of-touch Democrat Shannon Bird had to quit her day job because she was getting outraised so bad in her primary, and she still continues to fall behind,” NRCC spokesman Zach Bannon said in an email.

The assembly process gets underway in the first week of March with precinct caucuses, followed by county and district assemblies. Democrats and Republicans are both holding their state assemblies in Pueblo this year, with the Democrats meeting in the Southern Colorado city on March 28 and the GOP convening on April 11.

Mail ballots for the primary will start to go out to voters at the end of the first week of June and are due back to county clerks by June 30.