DENVER (CN) — Colorado primary voters on Tuesday chose an attorney from Grand Junction to defend the 3rd Congressional District from the determined and well-funded Democrat who narrowly lost two years ago.
Both Jeff Hurd, the district's new Republican nominee, and Adam Frisch, who ran unopposed on the Democratic ticket, originally began campaigning last year to beat controversial Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. Boebert, however, moved to the 4th Congressional District, which became vacant earlier this year. Boebert won that primary with 43% of the vote.
"Twenty-twenty-four is when we take our nation back and we set our path on a new trajectory for conservative values, for Christian morals," Boebert said in her victory speech from Windsor in the northeast corner of the state, where she quickly pivoted to her favorite issues of closing the border and keeping critical race theory out of schools.
Not only are Hurd and Boebert running to represent the Republican party on opposite sides of the state, they also represent competing factions of the party. Hurd is a traditional libertarian-leaning fiscal conservative, while Boebert is a MAGA freedom warrior. Both candidates hope to maintain red seats in two of three remaining red districts in a once-purple state increasingly tinting blue. Since former President Donald Trump entered the White House in 2016, Colorado Democrats have filled the statehouse and executive branch, flipped a U.S. Senate seat and hold five of the state’s eight spots in Congress.
With Republicans outnumbering Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives by five seats, the balance of power will be decided in competitive congressional districts like Colorado’s 3rd, which spans the western half of the state, and is already among the nation’s most expensive races.
A former Aspen city councilman, Frisch went on what he called the Beat Boebert BBQ Tour in 2022, traveling thousands of miles to court independent and disenfranchised Republicans to his campaign against the brassy incumbent. Frisch lost to Boebert by about 500 votes, indicating not just that she was vulnerable but that the district could be flipped.
This cycle, Frisch raised $13 million and ranks the third-best funded House candidate in the country.
Frisch heads into the general election with more than $2 million worth of advertisements ready to go.
Hurd, Frisch’s opponent, is a political newcomer who once clerked for U.S. Circuit Judge Timothy Tymkovich. Hurd has raised more than $1 million to date with his top contributors including the law firms Sullivan & Cromwell and Ireland Stapleton.
Notably, Hurd beat former state Representative Ron Hanks by 14 points. Hanks had been endorsed by both Trump and the state party, a sign that voters are looking to return to pragmatic politicians over those associated with the far right.
A similar tension played out in the 5th Congressional District, encompassing Colorado Springs, where Trump-backed candidate and state party chair Dave Williams ran against Jeff Crank, who was endorsed by ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Crank earned the Republican spot on the ballot with a decisive 67% of the vote.
Boebert, who rode MAGA momentum from owning a small-town restaurant to being a member of the U.S. Congress proves to be an exception to the trend, for now.
Although Boebert won enough votes to make the November election ballot, 61,000 people or 53% of voters in the Republican primary selected one of the five other candidates.
Boebert will campaign against Trisha Calvarese, a Democratic staffer who won her party's primary about four points ahead of Ike McCorkle, a retired Marine who challenged the former incumbent in the past two election cycles.
In addition to choosing a candidate to run for the office in January, voters in the 4th District chose former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez to take over the remainder of Republican U.S. Representative Ken Buck’s term after he retired and vacated the seat earlier this year. With 58% of the vote, Lopez’s success signifies the district’s strong Republican loyalties.
Colorado’s most uncertain district is its newest: the 8th Congressional District, which encompasses the liberal suburbs of Westminster and Brighton, along with conservative oil country through Weld and Larimer counties.
Democrat Yadira Caraveo, a pediatrician, won the district in 2022 by less than 1% of the vote over moderate Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer. At the same time, 9,280 people voted Libertarian — a significant enough number to have changed the outcome either way.
With 78% of the vote, current state representative Gabe Evans will run against Caraveo and the Libertarian Party’s Eric Joss.
With the Libertarian Party attracting an influential number of general election voters, Joss offered to drop out if Evans signed a party pledge. As an army veteran who enlisted after 9/11, however, Evans told Courthouse News he could not commit to the Libertarians’ goal of dismantling intelligence agencies.
"Tonight, we showed Republicans are united and fired up to win this seat and defeat Yadira Caraveo,” Evans said in a statement. “Both in the military and law enforcement, I learned successful campaigns are run when a team works together, and I am so proud of the team we have built to take back CD8."
Results reported by the secretary of state will be certified in the coming weeks.
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