June 30, 2022 01:21 PM UTC

Adam Frisch Offers CD-3 One More Chance At Redemption

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Republican primary for Colorado’s Third Congressional District was a major disappointment for anyone hoping that Colorado Republicans can police their own to the same extent that North Carolina Republicans were able to rid themselves of top-tier congressional disgrace Madison Cawthorn. Freshman perpetual outrage machine Rep. Lauren Boebert shellacked her Republican opponent Sen. Don Coram with a humiliating 65.6% of the vote Tuesday, as the hoped-for wave of unaffiliated-led primary backlash against Boebert failed to materialize.

As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports, the winner of the Democratic CD-3 primary, former Aspen city councilor Adam Frisch, is lucid about the tall order in front of him as CD-3’s last and Frisch hopes best chance to limit Boebert to a single term of destruction:

While Frisch is running on a clear anti-Boebert platform, and hoping to gather votes just on that score alone, he said it will take far more than that to win in a general election in a district that favors conservative candidates…

Frisch said that the 35% of Republican primary voters who checked the box for Coram represents enough voters to make the newly redrawn district a more even playing field, instead of one that favors conservative candidates by about 9%.

“A chunk of them are not going to vote for a Democrat no matter how hard I try, but I will try,” he said. “But I do believe that a good chunk of the 35% that Senator Coram did get are going to be willing to listen to someone who has a strong business background. I think I can have a conversation and use language with sincerity that’s going to generate enough people to vote.”

There’s one big factor Frisch has in his favor that his primary opponents didn’t:

Like Boebert, Frisch has millions of dollars in his campaign account, although only about half of the $5 million that the congresswoman has raised. Still, most of Frisch’s $2.5 million came in the form of a loan to himself.

The unfortunate reality is that the combination of the redrawn CD-3 becoming more conservative and Boebert’s thumping of Don Coram in the primary means CD-3 will most likely not be a top-tier pickup opportunity targeted with national Democratic resources–unless the needle moves in the district first. The upshot is that Adam Frisch has the resources to make that happen, and there’s a scenario in which Frisch kickstarting the campaign against Boebert with his own money snowballs into a movement.

Whatever happens, Adam Frisch is now the last obstacle standing between Lauren Boebert and the validation of a second term. Frisch’s odds are long, but not impossible. And Boebert skates on thin enough ice scandalwise every day that you can never rule anything out.