Editor’s note: As of Nov. 11 at 8 a.m., this story is no longer being updated. Click here to see the latest news on the race between Rep. Lauren Boebert and challenger Adam Frisch in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
Headed into the fourth day of ballot counting in the 2022 midterm election, incumbent U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert maintained her lead over challenger Adam Frisch.
As of 7:30 a.m. Friday morning, Boebert led Frisch by 1,122 votes out of a total of 322,958 ballots counted, according to vote tallies from the Secretary of State’s Office. Previously Frisch held an even more narrow lead with just a few dozen votes.
The race is not yet over, though Frisch’s chances of making up the difference continue to shrink. Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert Ortiz confirmed to The Denver Post early Thursday that his office had yet to count thousands of in-person and mail-in ballots, plus his staff was in the process of verifying the signatures of another 500 or more ballots. Ortiz’s office filtered updated vote counts to state election officials throughout the day, and Boebert’s lead expanded from the morning.
to Boebert’s 47%.”]
Unless either candidate wins with enough votes, the race will trigger the state’s automatic recount process.
Colorado’s recount threshold sits at 0.5% of the leading candidate’s total votes, approximately 802 votes at the current turnout rate. Currently, Boebert’s lead is over that threshold.
How many additional ballots remain uncounted across the state remains unclear.
Garfield County Clerk Jean Alberico told The Denver Post that she expected to count up to 450 more votes in the coming days.
In addition, ballots from out-of-state voters, including members of the military, can be counted until Nov. 16, which could sway the results of such a close race.
As of 6:30 p.m. Thursday neither candidate had declared victory or conceded.
Boebert addressed the remarkably tight race, which most expected to break heavily in her favor, and blamed the narrow margin partially on strong turnout from Democrats, The Wall Street Journal Reported.
“I don’t know if there wasn’t enough enthusiasm for our top ticket candidates for governor and Senate or what happened there, but there was a lot of shifting in the votes there,” Boebert told the Journal.
Political scientists interpreted Boebert’s shortfall differently, though.
Casey Burgat, a legislative affairs program director at George Washington University, called the razor-thin race a direct repudiation of Boebert and her controversial governing style.
“We’ve seen this with party leaders before. They’re too comfortable and they start neglecting the people who actually cast the ballots,” Burgat said. “They think their party will carry them through and then they get slapped in the face with voters who are tired of that type of representation.”
Frisch, a former Aspen City Councilman, tweeted Wednesday night, asking voters to make sure ballots with any issues were fixed – “cured” is the technical term – with county clerks’ offices.
“As expected, this thing is coming down to the wire,” Frisch said. “Thank you for sticking with us! We’re feeling good & going to make sure every valid ballot counts.”
As expected, this thing is coming down to the wire. Thank you for sticking with us! We're feeling good & going to make sure every valid ballot counts.
But we need resources to get the ballots cured, get us through to the end, and defeat Lauren Boebert.https://t.co/q5VHGYgr2C
— Adam Frisch for CD-3 (@AdamForColorado) November 10, 2022
As more votes continue to trickle in, the outcome of the race could certainly change.
“I’m just guessing at this point,” Seth Masket, a political scientist with the University of Denver said.
Even if either candidate takes the lead and surpasses the automatic recount threshold, the losing candidate could request a recount, though they’d have to pay for the effort.
