Colorado’s Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, announced this week that U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) will serve another term in Congress for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
That’s after a very close race between Boebert and Democratic challenger Adam Frisch from Aspen triggered a mandatory recount by the state. Boebert’s lead on Frisch was fewer than 0.5% of the votes counted—the threshold for a recount.
All 27 counties will be reimbursed by the Secretary of State’s office for the cost of the mandatory recount.
After the recount, Boebert lost three votes, and Frisch picked up three. Boebert’s margin of victory ended up being just 546 votes.
Democratic challenger Adam Frisch from Aspen only picked up one vote in the recount, while Boebert lost three.
In a video message thanking her supporters, Boebert, a resident of Silt, took a different tone than she has in the past.
She promised to lead with grace—especially now that Republicans have a slim majority in the House of Representatives.
“A promise to you to be a good listener, to take a deep breath, and help take the temperature down in D.C.,” she said. “After all, the weight this responsibility of being in the majority holds requires discipline and targeted focus.”
She also expressed her commitment to conservative values and promised to fight for her constituents’ freedoms in Congress.
“It’s time we show how to get real work done for the people. We as Republicans must now prove we deserve to be in the majority,” she said, “And to stand for the policies that help every American overcome challenges, so we can all live our very best lives.”
Despite her words about turning down the temperature in Washington, she also emphasized her opposition to what she calls “the hard left’s move towards socialism.”
Boebert has recently been criticized for her vitriolic rhetoric targeting LGBTQ+ people, particularly in the wake of the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs.
Frisch conceded the election about ten days after Election Day. In a statement released after the recount, he praised Colorado election officials for conducting elections in a “fair, accurate, and highly transparent manner,” and he said he accepted the results of the election.
He also expressed pride in how close the race was, given that the third district was redrawn in 2021 to give Republicans a 7-point edge.
"We showed the nation that extremist politicians are not invincible, and that we can come together to have real conversations about issues that are important to our families, our businesses, and our communities,” Frisch said. “I am confident that the coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters we built throughout this campaign to reject hate and extremism in Southern and Western Colorado will grow into the future.”
Frisch has filed paperwork to run again in 2024, though he told Aspen Public Radio that he’s not sure yet if that run will happen.
