December 11, 2023 02:28 PM UTC

Jeff Hurd: Generic Republican Candidate

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• by: Colorado Pols

Grand Junction attorney Jeff Hurd is seeking the Republican nomination in CO-03 and hoping to unseat incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert in the June Primary Election. He’s been doing pretty well lately, picking up a bunch of high-profile endorsements while Boebert parties her way into oblivion.

But as we asked in this space in October, who exactly is Jeff Hurd, and does he have anything interesting to say?

The early returns are not encouraging.

Hurd’s first introduction to voters in October came via a long video that was almost entirely about his wife, Barbora Hurd, whose personal story of escaping communism in the former Czechoslovakia is actually a very compelling story. We wondered at the time why Hurd would introduce his campaign with a narrative video that was mostly about someone who is not Jeff Hurd…

Two months later, let’s just say we’re not wondering about that anymore.

Hurd’s campaign recently put up the first 30-second video featuring the actual candidate himself, which you can watch below. It’s possible that Hurd is the most boring politician we’ve seen in decades.

The ad features a lot of Jeff Hurd shaking hands, riding around in a truck, and muttering completely meaningless phrases such as “Colorado values” and “conservative fighter.”

The only thing we learn about Hurd is that he was born in Grand Junction and is a big fan of shaking hands. The only thing remotely interesting about this video is the half-hearted effort to make “Hurd” into a pun.

This video is so damn generic, in fact, that you could replace Hurd with a mop and the only difference would be making the handshake more awkward.

Even the background music sounds recycled from prior Republican campaigns in Colorado. What we Hurd above sounds a lot like “The Boss” ad from 2022 featuring Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea:

Hurd is less interesting than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the jelly (or the peanut butter, really). He’s a bread sandwich, basically.

Hurd seems to have the support of establishment Republicans. His fundraising so far has been plenty respectable. The question, then, is this: Can a completely generic white male Republican candidate really defeat a character as irritatingly-charismatic as Lauren Boebert?

It’s entirely possible that Boebert has done enough damage to herself and become so distasteful to Republicans in the third congressional district that she could lose a GOP Primary to someone who should essentially change his name to “Not Lauren Boebert.”

If Hurd wins in June, it will be the real-life version of one of those “Generic Republican vs. Democrat” tracking polls. Political scientists will study this race for years to come.

Jeff Hurd for Congress: He’s a Guy.