Democrat Manny Rutinel is running for Congress in Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District, which includes one of America’s top agriculture-producing counties and a major oil-producing region, while his record shows years of vegan advocacy and criticism of animal agriculture.
A clip provided exclusively to Breitbart News from Rutinel’s appearance on the City Cast Denver podcast shows him discussing his vegan lifestyle. Rutinel said he is a “more flexible” vegan now, but when asked if that meant eating meat, he said, “typically not.”
In a 2022 TikTok, Rutinel described “fantasizing about a long, beautiful life” when he sees women around his age at the airport. He also imagined falling in love with a woman at Trader Joe’s if they reached for vegan chorizo at the same time, calling it “romance of the highest form.”
Rutinel’s veganism has long been central to his public activism. In a photo published by the Independent Florida Alligator, a shirtless Rutinel is seen holding a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sign comparing the water used to produce one pound of beef to a number of showers.
The Independent Florida Alligator wrote that Rutinel “promotes the Student Animal Alliance by promoting veganism. Rutinel said it’s easy to remember to turn off a faucet while you soap or brush your teeth, but animal agriculture accounts for more environmental problems than any other sector of the environment.”
“In order to go green, you have to eat green,” Rutinel said.
One year earlier, Rutinel dressed as a pig and roamed around campus for National Hug a Vegan Day.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, while attending Yale Law School as a Law, Ethics & Animals Program fellow, Rutinel called animal agriculture “a horrific, exploitive [sic] industry” and proposed a plan to push farmers away from the meat industry. The outlet also reported that he founded and led Climate Refarm, an organization that helped schools and hospitals transition to plant-based meals and pushed for tax increases on meat, dairy, and eggs.
Rutinel also started a petition calling on Popeyes to offer a plant-based menu and testified to the Connecticut legislature that “the globe must dramatically shift away from animal products.”
His campaign now puts that record in direct contrast with Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District, where he is running against Republican incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans. The district includes Weld County, one of America’s top 10 agriculture-producing counties, Colorado’s leading producer of beef cattle and dairy, and a county responsible for 26 percent of the state’s agricultural output. Weld County has roughly 4,000 farms and 2.5 million acres, with 75 percent devoted to farming and raising livestock.
According to the USDA, Weld County is home to 545,480 head of cattle and 129,426 sheep and lambs. Weld County is also America’s highest producer of lamb by market value.
RNC spokesman Zach Kraft told Breitbart News, “Low energy soy boy Manny Rutinel has been on a life-long mission to dismantle Colorado’s meat industry. He won’t rest until the entire state is forced to eat vegan with him, so he has a sliver of hope of finding love in the veggie aisle instead of creeping on women in the airport.”
Rutinel’s environmental agenda has also extended beyond ranching and animal agriculture. In the Colorado state legislature, Rutinel created legislation requiring state energy producers to reduce emissions from oil production by 60 percent by 2030. Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District also produces four percent of the nation’s oil and is responsible for thousands of jobs.
Rutinel also previously backed a Denver ballot measure, deemed too extreme by the Denver Democrat Party, that sought to ban meat processing plants and the sale of furs.
Rutinel is running in a race that has been described as one of the 2026 midterm’s “most competitive races.” Townhall reported that Rutinel has aligned himself with groups openly hostile to U.S. immigration enforcement, including one that circulated a Google folder titled “F*CK ICE” containing resources to help illegal immigrants avoid arrest. Rutinel also backed a letter calling for the release of illegal immigrant Jeannette Vizguerra, who founded Abolish ICE Denver and has dodged deportation for years.
A man who appeared to be Rutinel was also seen in one of socialist New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s social media videos, and posts from Rutinel’s account indicated that he was in New York at the time.
Evans won Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District in 2024 with 49 percent of the vote, receiving 163,320 votes to Caraveo’s 48.2 percent, or 160,871 votes. His margin of victory was 2,449 votes, less than one percentage point.
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