Adam Frisch announces 2024 Congress run, potential rematch with CD3 Rep. Lauren Boebert
Adam Frisch lost to GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert by less than 550 votes in a November election many pundits predicted would be an easy win for Boebert in a strong Republican-leaning district.
Less than three months after Frisch conceded to Boebert, the Democrat from Aspen is relaunching a campaign to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District in 2024.
Frisch announced his run on social media Tuesday morning and held a launch event Wednesday at Pueblo’s Union Depot amid a snowstorm.
He said he received more than $250,000 in donations in the first 24 hours after announcing his campaign.
Although Boebert is one of the most well-known members of Congress and regularly makes headlines, Frisch’s campaign and the CO-3 election did not receive much coverage from national media until after Election Day, when early results showed him in the lead for the first few days.
“No one took us seriously when we launched about a year ago. We were supposed to lose by 40,000 to 45,000 votes,” Frisch said.
Frisch told the Chieftain that the election in this district, which includes most of the Western Slope, Pueblo and some surrounding Eastern Plains counties, could be one of the most closely watched Congressional campaigns in the country in 2024.
“There's other close races out there, but not anybody that has that type of notoriety as Rep. Boebert,” Frisch said.
He said that national attention on the district’s representative, generally, is not great.
“The district is a lot better off when it's not (receiving) national attention, because usually when districts are out of the news, it means that the representative — whether they're Republican or Democrat — are just doing their job. And the more notoriety people get, usually, it's not for a good reason in politics and public service,” Frisch said.
Frisch mentioned a bipartisanship ranking from the nonpartisan Lugar Center and Georgetown University that ranked Boebert as the third-least bipartisan member of Congress. Mary Miller (R-Illinois) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), two fellow members of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, were at the bottom of the list.
Frisch said that he would want to be among the top 10 congressmembers in the ranking if elected to serve.
Frisch received 53% of Pueblo votes in November. Democratic turnout in CO-3 was lower in 2022 than 2018, CPR News reported, and Pueblo County had one of the lowest voter participation rates in the state. Pueblo County partisan turnout mirrors districtwide trends: Republicans turned out at a higher rate than Democrats.
Voter turnout in Pueblo increases from previous midterm, but still below state average
Frisch said he wasn’t sure why turnout in Pueblo is relatively low — he said that historically, turnout in Pueblo is lower and cited the county’s demographics as a possible contributing factor.
He said that he was proud of bringing diverse community leaders onto his campaign, such as Puebloan Sol Sandoval, the runner-up in the June 2022 Democratic primary.
Sandoval was recently appointed to fill a position on the Pueblo School District 60 Board and will be on the local ballot in November. She came to Frisch’s Pueblo event on Wednesday and told the Chieftain she is not going to run again for Congress in 2024.
Frisch emphasized that he spent a lot of time in Pueblo “trying to engage in a very diverse community” and said that he’ll use the next 20 months before the election to meet people.
He said that much of his campaign messaging will be similar to last year.
“People want the circus to stop. They want someone to focus on the district, not on themselves,” Frisch said. He added that the issues in CD3, such as water, mental health, agriculture, and the importance of domestic energy, are not “red and blue."
"It is about solving problems in a pragmatic way," he said.
Many Frisch staffers who worked for him during the last election are also working on the 2024 campaign.
Frisch said there isn’t much that he would change from the previous campaign, but he noted that having plenty of time before the next election to travel the district and fundraise will be helpful.
Campaign finance records show that Frisch received more than $4.4 million in contributions from individuals in 2022.
He never ruled out running again in 2024 after he was defeated in November. Frisch's campaign filed with the Federal Elections Commission to run in 2024 shortly after Election Day. He said at the time that the filing was to ensure campaign staff members were fully compensated and debts were paid amid a prolonged wait for results.
A rematch between Boebert and Frisch is not set in stone: Frisch still needs to win a Democratic primary election in June 2024.
Frisch said anybody who wants to run should, but he feels “very strongly” that he will be the Democratic nominee because he has a large backing and a “pretty impressive track record at a national level.”
“Whether we're going to be by ourselves, or whether there's going to be 25 people running, I welcome all the conversations and the dialogue and whatever we can do to make CD3 be represented better. I'm all for it,” Frisch said.
Dr. Debby Burnett, a veterinarian from Gunnison, is also planning on running in the Democratic primary. Burnett ran in 2022 but did not qualify for the primary ballot.
Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com or on Twitter, @annalynnfrey.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Frisch announces 2024 bid for CD3; sets stage for rematch with Boebert
