Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert locked in tight race against Democrat
The Republican extremist Lauren Boebert was clinging to her US House seat by her fingertips on Thursday, as a close race with the Democrat Adam Frisch edged closer to the finish line.
A recount in Colorado’s third district was a near certainty, as Boebert, a Donald Trump loyalist, trailed the businessman and former city council member by just 64 votes out of 313,428 counted, with almost 99% of precincts reporting.
Boebert, a conspiracy theorist and election denier who has positioned herself as a mouthpiece of her party’s extreme right wing, had been expected to win re-election at a canter, especially after redistricting added Republican-leaning rural areas to the cities of Grand Junction and Aspen.
But on Thursday the margin in the race put it in the recount zone of about 800 votes or less, or 0.5% of the leader’s vote total. Both Boebert and Frisch had 50% of the vote as of Thursday morning.
Frisch contends that Boebert sacrificed her constituents’ interests for frequent “angertainment”, accusing Joe Biden and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, of seeking to destroy the soul of the nation. He vowed if elected to join the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, a sharp turn from Boebert’s repudiation of across-the-aisle politics.
Last month, Boebert prompted shock and mockery for telling party members they would “get to be part of ushering in the second coming of Jesus”, while insisting society was “in the last of last days”.
At a dinner hosted by the Knox county Republican party in Tennessee, the congresswoman addressed the guests by saying, “I want to start with two words: ‘Let’s go, Brandon’” – a reference to a vulgar anti-Biden slogan.
Frisch said the close contest wasn’t a surprise.
“I spent 10 months trying to convince donors and journalists and political strategists everywhere that there was a path forward,” Frisch said. “I have this calm belief that that 40% of the Republican party wants their party back.”
At a campaign event late on Tuesday in Grand Junction, Boebert declared: “We will have this victory.”
A Republican state senator, Barbara Kirkmeyer, and a Democratic state representative, Yadira Caraveo, were in another tight race in Colorado’s new eighth district, which stretches north from the Denver suburbs to Greeley. Kirkmeyer tweeted that she called Caraveo to concede. The Associated Press had not yet called the race.
“While this is not the outcome we hoped for,” Kirkmeyer wrote on Twitter, “I am proud of our team and our campaign.”
Caraveo claimed victory, writing: “It’s the honor of my lifetime to receive this vote of confidence to serve working families from Greeley to Commerce City in Washington.”
Caraveo is a pediatrician and defender of abortion rights who voted for police accountability after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Caraveo hoped her lineage as the child of Mexican migrants would attract support in a swing district where Latinos comprise nearly 40% of voters.
Kirkmeyer pledged to get tough on crime and unleash the oil and gas industry, which has a significant presence in the district. She once supported a blanket ban on abortion but now says she would respect exceptions if the mother’s life was in danger.