October 12, 2022 09:46 AM UTC

Why Don Coram's Endorsement of Adam Frisch Matters

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• by: Colorado Pols

A press release from Democratic CD-3 candidate Adam Frisch, running hard and closing the gap in the polls down the home stretch against freshman GOP kaleidoscope of crazy Rep. Lauren Boebert, announces the endorsement of Frisch by Boebert’s rival in the 2022 GOP primary, state Sen. Don Coram of Montrose:

In a letter endorsing Frisch, Coram criticized Boebert for failing to pass a single piece of legislation during her tenure and said she has “consistently voted against legislation that would benefit the 3rd Congressional District.”

“What’s more disconcerting is that she continues to lie to voters and claims credit for things she had absolutely nothing to do with,” Coram continues. “Bottom line, instead of working to represent the people in the 3rd CD, Lauren spends her time jet-setting around the country promoting herself and extreme rhetoric that only divides this country further. It’s disgraceful and we should expect more from our United States Representative.”

“I believe Adam Frisch is a good man,” Coram says. “He has demonstrated that he is more interested in representing the district than being a celebrity. That’s important. Naturally, Adam and I differ on various policies and issues. However, I know that he is the type of person who will come to the table and have a conversation. That is what we should expect from our representative.”

“Let’s elect someone who cares about representing the majority of people in the middle that are fed up with extreme partisanship and juvenile antics. Join me in voting for Adam Frisch for Congress,” Coram concluded.

Although Coram lost to Boebert in the Republican primary by a substantial margin, Coram nonetheless represents a large disaffected segment of Republican voters in CD-3 who are tired of Boebert’s high-bombast low-results leadership. But even that doesn’t capture the whole story of Boebert’s soft support: although the ardent Republican base adores Boebert, which obligates fellow Republican elected officials to defend or at least uncomfortably ignore Boebert’s embarrassing antics, Boebert operates very much separately from the rest of the GOP campaigns in the state. Boebert has made no significant endorsements in Colorado races, even those in which she might help more than hurt–and Boebert doesn’t appear on the campaign trail with other Republican candidates who have been touring as a bloc.

Like Sen. Kevin Priola’s recent defection to the Democratic Party citing the GOP’s slide rightward into national destruction, Don Coram’s endorsement of Adam Frisch is a reminder that while the Trump-addled “MAGA” wing of the Republican Party is in control, there is resistance within. With Coram retiring from the state Senate, there’s no avenue to exact retribution like Republicans are attempting to do to Priola.

The closest comparison we have in recent Colorado political history to what Frisch is trying to accomplish against Boebert is the victory by Rep. Betsy Markey in 2008 over hard-right Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in conservative CD-4. That underdog (and as it turned out, short-lived) Democratic victory occurred under very different circumstances, much more favorable to Democrats than the 2022 midterms have been presumed from the beginning to be. But like Boebert, Musgrave made herself a national symbol of out-of-touch Republican wedge-issue crusading at the expense of representing her constituents. And Musgrave paid for it with her career.

While the marquee fights in Colorado’s U.S. Senate and CD-8 races rage, a similar housecleaning could be setting up to occur in CD-3. While Don Coram would have rather it had been himself liberating the district from Boebert’s reign of whackadoodlery, Frisch is giving the voters of CD-3 one last shot at redemption.