Lauren Boebert's Democratic Challenger Concedes in Shockingly Tight Colorado House Race
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JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Lauren Boebert
Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert will get a second term in office, after her Democratic challenger put up an unexpectedly tough fight to unseat the controversial Republican after just one term.
On Friday Adam Frisch, a former Aspen city councilman, announced that he'd called Boebert to concede in one of the final House races in the country to be called. At the time of his concession, he sat only 551 votes behind Boebert, close enough to trigger an automatic recount according to Colorado state law.
"I'm tremendously thankful for the love and support that came from every corner of our district, and from across our nation," Frisch said in a livestream, before accepting his loss. "Please know that in the coming weeks, I will pause and reflect on this race, how I can continue to work for the people of western and southern Colorado, and this great nation."
Boebert, 35, and Frisch, 55, faced off in Colorado's 3rd Congressional District. For the first couple of days that votes were being counted, it appeared that Frisch had the upper hand, leading Boebert in a race that she was projected to win with 97% certainty by election forecaster FiveThirtyEight.
The Republican incumbent — a provocative right-winger in the mold of former President Donald Trump — eventually surpassed Frisch, finishing 0.16% ahead of him.
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Though Frisch conceded, he shared some strong words about what he hopes his campaign can show Boebert.
"Our great country must get back to normalcy. I heard time and time again on the campaign trail: America is tired of the circus. Tired of the lack of respect for our institutions and our democracy. And tired of the lack of civility and our discourse," he said. "Most importantly, folks in western and southern Colorado are tired of the lack of a serious representative, of having representation that is more interested in self-promotion through the anger-tainment industry."
Win McNamee/Getty
First elected to Congress in 2020, Boebert won the Republican primary in her western Colorado district in June.
The lawmaker's freshman term has been checkered with controversy that Boebert herself courted. Earlier this year, she called a Republican primary challenger a "groomer," a term for a person who sexually abuses children.
She feuded last year with Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, about whom she has made racist comments, calling her a member of "the jihad squad" and accusing her of "praising terrorists."
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Boebert was also accused of meeting with organizers of pro-Trump rallies on Jan. 6, 2021. She has denied any involvement in the violent riot that followed, though her tweets during the attack — "Today is 1776," one said, while another indicated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's whereabouts — have been criticized.
A fervent gun advocate who vowed in a political ad to carry a weapon to work in Congress, Boebert reportedly got into a standoff with Capitol Police when she refused to allow officers to search her bag after setting off metal detectors just days after the insurrection.
The editorial board of Boebert's state newspaper of record, The Denver Post, offered a blisteringly critical assessment of her tenure, imploring voters in a recent op-ed not to vote for the incumbent congresswoman this year.
The board wrote that Boebert "has not represented the 3rd Congressional District well. Almost exclusively, she has spent her time and efforts contributing to the toxic political environment in this nation."
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The editorial continued: "Boebert's unproductive approach, combined with the efforts of others, has helped erode Congress' ability to honestly debate public policy that could help people in her district."
The paper also detailed another controversy facing Boebert: that she has "opposed every effort to protect public lands in the district" while also failing to disclose in a timely manner that her husband "made almost $1 million as a consultant for the largest drilling company in the 3rd Congressional District's Piceance Basin."
