Connect with us

Colorado

Colorado’s 3rd District prepares for epic, costly election battle — even without Lauren Boebert

Published

on

Colorado’s 3rd District prepares for epic, costly election battle — even without Lauren Boebert


Since U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert opted to change her address to one clear across the state late last year, the race for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District has fallen out of the media glare that seemingly shines on the controversial Republican congresswoman wherever she goes.

But Colorado’s largest district by land mass — taking in Grand Junction, Gunnison, Durango and Pueblo — may prove a critical contest in a closely divided Congress where the major parties are always hungry to flip a seat. That’s true, a political observer said, even if a Democrat hasn’t represented the district since John Salazar lost the 2010 election to Scott Tipton.

One big reason: Adam Frisch.

The Democrat who came within 546 votes of unseating Boebert two years ago on the Western Slope now possesses solid name recognition, including outside Colorado, and “a massive advantage in campaign finance,” said Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State University.

Advertisement

Even since Boebert announced her decision to switch to the open race in the 4th Congressional District on the Eastern Plains, Frisch — who’s unopposed in the June 25 primary — has outraised every other congressional candidate in the state.

“With the margin of control of the House of Representatives being so very close, every competitive seat should — and no doubt will — be contested vigorously,” Saunders said. “While CD3 is not the most competitive seat on that list, I still expect both sides to fully engage in fighting hard for it.”

In the generally L-shaped district, which stretches from lonely Kleins Hill in the northwest corner of the state to the tiny town of Kim in Las Animas County, southeast of Pueblo, the district’s biggest voter group — at nearly 230,000-strong — are those affiliated with no party.

But with the polarizing Boebert out, it’s possible the political dynamics will revert closer to normal. That would mean, Saunders said, that “a generic Republican beats a generic Democrat by seven points” in the 3rd District, which boasts 35,000 or so more active GOP voters than Democrats.

In November, Frisch, 56, a former Aspen city councilman, will face one of a half dozen candidates seeking the Republican nomination in June — including attorney Jeff Hurd, Colorado Board of Education member Stephen Varela and ultra-conservative former state lawmaker Ron Hanks.

Advertisement

The other GOP contenders are Russ Andrews, a Carbondale financial adviser; Curtis McCrackin, a Delta County businessman; and Lew Webb, a former car dealership owner who lives in Durango.

Frisch’s performance in 2022 revealed the second-term congresswoman’s vulnerability among voters who had grown tired of her antics and penchant for generating unflattering headlines.

“Frisch has an experienced organization now,” Saunders said.

His financial advantage adds up to nearly $6 million on hand as of the end of March. It’s money Frisch can use to run ads and blanket the district with his name and face on yard signs. It’s more than what the six Republican candidates battling it out in the primary have in their war chests — combined.

A shipping container in a field outside a trucking business in Pueblo has a message of support for Lauren Boebert’s 2024 re-election bid on Nov. 1, 2023, about a month before she exited the race to run in a different Colorado congressional district. It’s unclear if Republicans will support a standard-bearer like her — or opt for a new direction. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

For his part, the Democratic candidate knows he likely has a tough fight ahead without Boebert as a powerful foil.

Advertisement

“I am confident that the 50,000 miles driven and speaking in front of Democrats, independents and Republicans, I’ve earned the trust of a lot of people,” Frish said in an interview. “But it’s going to be a close race, without a doubt.”

He has laid out positions on border security, energy and other issues that set him apart from many in his party — though the Republicans vying to run against him question whether he could escape the larger philosophical grip of the Democratic Party.

“Adam’s running like he’s Ronald Reagan incarnated, but his party doesn’t tolerate dissent,” Andrews said. “He’s not going to be able to be nearly as conservative in Congress as he is on the campaign trail.”

Will Trump be a factor?

Widely considered the GOP frontrunner by way of his fundraising and endorsements — at least so far — is Hurd, a Mesa County native and attorney who represents electric associations. The mild-mannnered political novice entered the race last summer as an alternative to Boebert on the Republican ticket.

Jeff Hurd, an attorney on Colorado's Western Slope, is running in the Republican primary in the 3rd Congressional District in 2024. (Photo provided by Ireland Stapleton)
Jeff Hurd, an attorney on Colorado’s Western Slope, is running in the Republican primary in the 3rd Congressional District in 2024. (Photo provided by Ireland Stapleton)

“I’m viewed as the guy who has the target on his back a little bit,” he said.

Hurd, 44, has raised appreciably more money than his Republican opponents and has picked up some high-profile endorsements from the likes of former Gov. Bill Owens and John Suthers, the former Colorado attorney general and Colorado Springs mayor. But he needs to do better in the money game versus Frisch, and he knows it.

Advertisement

Frisch took in $1.4 million in the first three months of 2024 compared to Hurd’s $241,000.

“We’re going to have a formidable and well-funded candidate to face. As Republicans, we need to take it seriously,” Hurd said. “I’m motivated to raising more money in the next quarter.”

He lists the flow of immigrants across the southern U.S. border in recent years as a “massive political failure” at the top of the issues page of his campaign website. Energy extraction, important in the 27-county 3rd District, is also a priority for Hurd. Those two issues form a nexus between Hurd and former President Donald Trump, who will be the Republican presidential nominee at the top of November’s ballot.

“His top two issues are my top two issues — securing the border and energy independence,” Hurd said.

Beyond that, Hurd is tight-lipped about the former president, declining to say even whether he voted for him in the last two elections — “I’m not focused on 2016 and 2020,” he said — or whether he will vote for Trump this fall.

Advertisement

“I don’t talk about who I vote for,” Hurd said.

Trump could be a volatile factor for the district’s Republican nominee, Saunders said. Colorado voters gave President Biden a more-than-13-percentage-point edge over Trump in 2020.

“So, how close can Hurd get to Trump without cost is an interesting question in this cycle,” Saunders said. “Likewise, will Frisch try to tie the Republican nominee as closely as possible to Trump in order to alienate those unaffiliated voters again?”

On the other hand, the party standard bearer at the top of the ticket could mobilize the GOP base in the 3rd Congressional District. After all, Trump won the district by more than 8 percentage points over Biden four years ago, according to calculations by the progressive political site Daily Kos that take redistricting into account.

“The problem Frisch faces is just one of numbers,” Saunders said. “He can absolutely win, but it remains an uphill climb when there are so many more Rs than Ds in the district, even with this name recognition and big-money advantage.”

Advertisement

Andrews said that could open a more conservative path for him.

“I fill that lane that people want,” said Andrews, who proudly declares himself the owner of 19 firearms and a strong defender of gun rights.

The 66-year-old father of three takes a hardline position on immigration, calling for finishing the border wall, implementing “national security tariffs” on goods and services from China and Mexico, changing the nation’s asylum laws so that applicants must apply from outside the country and deporting all migrants who entered the U.S. illegally since Biden’s “first day in office.”

He calls Hurd a “nice guy” but part of the Republican “old guard.”

“I’m on Team CD3”

Frisch, who has spent a dozen years in the homebuilding business and another dozen in international finance, has a mantra he likes to repeat: “I’m not on Team Blue, I’m not on Team Red — I’m on Team CD3.”

Advertisement

“They want to hammer that I’ll be beholden to the (Democratic) party,” he said of his political opponents. “I’m going to say what I believe and that frustrates a lot of people. I’m called a DINO (Democrat In Name Only) all the time. But my message is not changing, my work ethic is not changing, my independence is not changing.”

The border, he said, is “out of control.”

“We need to figure out how to secure the border and reduce the number of people coming here illegally,” Frisch said. “We’re a nation of immigrants but we’re also a nation of laws.”

He’s also a critic of efforts by some in his party to restrain domestic fossil fuel energy production.

Then-Colorado state Senate candidate Stephen Varela, a Republican, addresses the crowd during a campaign rally in Pueblo on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022. (Photo by Zachary Allen/Pueblo Chieftain via AP)
Then-Colorado state Senate candidate Stephen Varela, a Republican, addresses the crowd during a campaign rally in Pueblo on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022. (Photo by Zachary Allen/Pueblo Chieftain via AP)

But on abortion, Frisch is firmly in favor of protecting access, an issue that has hampered Republican successes at the ballot box since the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“It will be an important part of the conversation,” Frisch promised for the fall.

Advertisement

Varela, who will get top-line billing on the Republican primary ballot in June because of his dominant performance at this month’s GOP assembly, said he is a former Democrat and against abortion. Voters, he said, respect a candidate for staying true to a position even if it’s controversial.

“They don’t want the wishy-washiness,” he said.

In February, The Denver Post reported that Varela faces a federal investigation into his past management of a government employees union in southern Colorado, including improper spending; Varela called the allegations baseless.

Though Varela, 39, has only $23,000 cash on hand as of the end of March, his Latino roots and military combat experience in Iraq should resonate with voters, he said.

“People in CD3 aren’t for sale,” he said. “They want to know you’re going to represent them.”

Advertisement

Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.



Source link

Colorado

‘Saleabration’ comes back to Colorado Springs for third year

Published

on

‘Saleabration’ comes back to Colorado Springs for third year


A powerful search engine that organizes and provides access to vast information on the internet.

COMPASS

This cookie is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation

2 days

Advertisement

__Secure-OSID

This cookie is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation

6 months

G_AUTHUSER_H

Google Authentication

Advertisement

session

UULE

sends precise location information from your browser to Googles servers so that Google can show you results that are relevant to your location. The use of this cookie depends on your browser settings and whether you have chosen to have location turned on for your browser.

6 hours

OSID

Advertisement

This cookie is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation

6 months

__Host-3PLSID

Used to sign in with Google account.

1 year

Advertisement

DV

This cookies is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation

1 year

LSID

This cookie is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation

Advertisement

6 months

TAID

This cookie is used to link your activity across devices if you’ve previously signed in to your Google Account on another device. We do this to coordinate that the ads you see across devices and measure conversion events.

14 days

g_enabled_idps

Advertisement

Used for Google Single Sign On

1 year

FPGCLDC

Used to help advertisers determine how many times users who click on their ads end up taking an action on their site

90 days

Advertisement

_gcl_au

Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services.

3 months

__Secure-ENID

Used by Google to prevent fraudulent login attempts. This also contains a Google user ID which can be used for statistics and marketing purposes following a successful login

Advertisement

11 Months

_gcl_dc

Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services.

3 months

SEARCH_SAMESITE

Advertisement

SameSite prevents the browser from sending this cookie along with cross-site requests. The main goal is mitigate the risk of cross-origin information leakage. It also provides some protection against cross-site request forgery attacks.

session

GCLB

This cookie is used in context with load balancing – This optimizes the response rate between the visitor and the site, by distributing the traffic load on multiple network links or servers.

Session

Advertisement

__Host-GAPS

Used to sign in with Google account.

1 year

NID

This cookies is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation

Advertisement

1 year

LSOLH

This cookie is for authentication with your Google account

1 year

HSID

Advertisement

Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.

2 years

receive-cookie-deprecation

This cookie ensures browers in an experiment group of the Chrome-facilitated testing period include the Sec-Cookie-Deprecation request header as soon as it becomes available.

180 days

Advertisement

_dcid

Collects information on user behaviour on multiple websites. This information is used in order to optimize the relevance of advertisement on the website.

400 days

CONSENT

Google cookie consent tracker

Advertisement

20 years

SAPISID

Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.

2 years

SNID

Advertisement

This cookie is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation

6 months

AID

Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.

1 year

Advertisement

FCCDCF

Cookie for Google Funding Choices API which allows for functionality specific to consent gathering for things like GDPR consent and CCPA opt-out.

13 months

SID

Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.

Advertisement

2 years

FCNEC

Cookie for Google Funding Choices API which allows for functionality specific to consent gathering for things like GDPR consent and CCPA opt-out.

13 months

1P_JAR

Advertisement

These cookies are set via embedded youtube-videos. They register anonymous statistical data on for example how many times the video is displayed and what settings are used for playback.

1 month

APISID

Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.

2 years

Advertisement

OTZ

Aggregate analysis of website visitors

17 days

GN_PREF

This cookie is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation

Advertisement

1 year

__Host-1PLSID

Used to sign in with Google account.

1 year

A

Advertisement

Google uses this cookies to make advertising more engaging to users and more valuable to publishers and advertisers

17 days

SIDCC

Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.

2 years

Advertisement

SOCS

Stores a user’s state regarding their cookies choices

13 months

SSID

Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.

Advertisement

2 years

cookies_accepted

This functionality cookie is simply to verify that you have allowed us to set cookies on your machine

1 year

ACCOUNT_CHOOSER

Advertisement

Used to sign in with Google account.

session

SMSV

Used to sign in with Google account.

session

Advertisement

gcl

Helps advertisers determine user actions on their site after clicking an ad

90 days

gac

Measure user activity and ad campaign performance for advertisers

Advertisement

90 days

AdID

Show Google ads on non-Google sites and personalize ads based on user settings

2 weeks

DSID

Advertisement

Identifies signed-in users on non-Google sites to respect ad personalization settings

2 weeks

_Secure-ENID

Remembers user preferences like language, search results per page, and SafeSearch settings

13 months

Advertisement

Secure-YEC

Serve a similar purpose for YouTube, including detecting and resolving problems

13 months

CGIC

Improves search results delivery by autocompleting queries based on user input

Advertisement

6 months

_Secure-YEC

Used to detect spam, fraud, and abuse to protect advertisers and YouTube creators

13 months

django_language

Advertisement

Cookie necessary for the use of the options and services of the website.

3 month



Source link

Continue Reading

Colorado

Julian Lewis Says Deion Sanders’ Colorado ‘Wasn’t Really Looking at Defenses Much’ Last Season

Published

on

Julian Lewis Says Deion Sanders’ Colorado ‘Wasn’t Really Looking at Defenses Much’ Last Season


Colorado quarterback Julian Lewis made a stunning admission that could explain the team’s 3-9 finish to the 2025 season.

While speaking to ESPNU at Big 12 media days, Lewis was asked what the biggest difference was between last year and this year, and he revealed that the Deion Sanders-coached Buffaloes typically didn’t watch film during his first season with the team.

“My play, I’m actually looking at the defenses now,” Lewis said. “Last year, we wasn’t really looking at defenses much, just kind of high school free-balling, just out there playing football. But it’s a lot bigger than that now, so it should be fun.”

Before taking a redshirt year, Lewis played in four games as a true freshman with two starts and threw for 589 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions while completing 55.3 percent of his passes. He should fare even better this season with the benefit of film study.

Advertisement

Lewis will enter the 2026 campaign as Colorado’s starting quarterback, so he will have the opportunity to show his improvements when the Buffaloes open the year against Georgia Tech on Sept. 3.



Source link

Continue Reading

Colorado

Colorado River, public lands reopen as Snyder Fire containment increases

Published

on

Colorado River, public lands reopen as Snyder Fire containment increases


State and federal agencies are starting to reopen public lands, state wildlife areas and a segment of the Colorado River that were closed in light of the Snyder Fire in Mesa County. 

Stage 2 fire restrictions — banning all open fire or flames, including charcoal grills and wood-burning stoves — remain in effect as extreme fire danger, spurred on by hot and dry conditions, persists across the region.  

The Snyder Fire started on Friday, June 26, when several smaller fires burning on the Colorado-Utah border combined. As of July 7, the fire was 98% contained after burning over 30,200 acres and killing three wildland firefighters.  



With fire activity decreasing and containment increasing, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Bureau of Land Management shared their plans Tuesday to reopen lands impacted by the wildfire. 

Advertisement

Parks and Wildlife said in a news release that it, alongside the Bureau of Land Management, had lifted the closure for public access and downstream recreation on the Colorado River, starting at the James M. Robb-Colorado River State Park in Fruita and extending to the Utah state line. It also reopened the boat ramp at the Fruita section of the James M. Robb-Colorado River State Park in Fruita to downstream traffic.



The state agency’s Horsethief State Wildlife Area in Fruita and the Loma Boat Launch State Wildlife Area also reopened. 

The BLM said in a news release that all lands within the perimeter of the Snyder Fire burn area remain closed to ensure public and firefighter safety. 

“The burned landscape — including vegetation — remains dynamic and unpredictable as it naturally recovers from the fire impacts. This order is effective immediately and will remain in effect until the order is rescinded,” the BLM said. 

Advertisement

Both agencies also warned that fire danger remains extremely elevated and Stage 2 fire restrictions are in place.

A map of current federal and state fire restrictions is available on the Rocky Mountain Area Interagency Fire Restriction Dashboard or by visiting DFPC.Colorado.Gov/sections/wildfire-information-center. The Colorado Trails Explorer (or COTREX) app also has wildfire closure alerts.

Under current conditions, Parks and Wildlife advised the following actions to prevent sparking wildfires: 

  • Use established rings: Where permitted, only build campfires inside permanent metal fire rings in designated campgrounds.
  • Clear nearby debris: Remove all dry grass, leaves and pine needles within a 10-foot radius of any flame.
  • Drown and stir: Extinguish fires completely with water, stir the ashes, and ensure the debris is cold to the touch.
  • Watch campfires constantly: Never leave a fire or portable stove unattended. If you see an unattended fire, call 911.  
  • Keep vehicles off brush: Avoid parking or idling cars on tall, dry grass where hot exhaust systems can ignite a fire.
  • Secure towing equipment: Ensure trailer safety chains do not drag and spark against asphalt. Check them at every stop.

The BLM added that under its Stage 2 restrictions, smoking is prohibited except in an enclosed vehicle or building, a developed recreation site, or while stopped in an area at least three feet in diameter that is barren or cleared of all flammable materials. 

Gas-powered stoves or grills with a shut-off valve are still allowed in cleared areas under this stage. 

Violating Stage 2 fire restrictions by lighting a campfire is a Class 2 misdemeanor. Violators face an immediate citation, a mandatory court appearance, steep fines and potential jail time. Additionally, you can be held financially liable for all fire suppression costs and property damage if the campfire sparks a wildfire.

Advertisement





Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending