(The Center Square) – Republicans getting a new start in Colorado’s congressional districts seemed to be the most successful during Tuesday’s primary election.
Jeff Hurd, an attorney from Grand Junction, won a six-way race for the Republican nomination for the 3rd Congressional District with 42% of the vote. Former state representative Ron Hanks was second with 28%
Hurd will face Democrat Adam Frisch, who lost the 3rd District seat to Lauren Boebert in 2022 by approximately 500 votes. Multiple media outlets reported Frisch has been successfully raising money since he lost to Boebert.
Democrats and political action committees spent approximately $500,000 on ads positioning Hanks’ questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election. The strategy showed Democrats would have liked Frisch to run against Hanks instead of Hurd.
“We went after the two assumed top vote getters, but that’s in the past and let’s go forward,” Frisch said in an interview with KUSA. “Jeff is a good family man and a good father. But (with) corporate PAC money and (being) a corporate lawyer, I don’t think that’s what the western slope and southern Colorado needs.”
Boebert switched to the 4th District after Republican Ken Buck resigned earlier this year. Boebert received 43% of the votes to win a five-way race for the Republican nomination in the 4th District. She will face Trisha Calvarese, who received 46% of the votes in the Democratic primary.
“2024 is when we take Colorado back, when we take our nation back,” Boebert said during a victory celebration in Weld County broadcast by KUSA. “We set a path for a new trajectory for conservative values, for Christian values.”
Boebert said she was looking for “a fresh start” when she announced she was switching districts. The announcement followed a divorce of her husband of 17 years and later being escorted out of a theatre in Denver for inappropriate conduct she later apologized for.
In a special election called to replace Buck for the final months of his term, Republican Greg Lopez won with 58% of the vote. Democrat Trisha Eloise Calvarese received 34% of the vote.
Some controversial state representatives and a leader of the Colorado GOP lost their primaries. Jeff Crank, a conservative activist, received 67% of the vote to defeat Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams in the primary for the 5th Congressional District.
State Rep. Elisabeth Epps, a Democrat who led legislative efforts to restrict firearms and left the House floor to sit with Palestinian protestors in the gallery in November, was defeated by Sean Camacho, who received 64% of the vote.
State Rep. Tim Hernandez, a Democrat who was appointed to replace Serena Gonzalez-Gutierrez when she joined the Denver City Council, was criticized for his comments at a pro-Palestinian rally last October. He lost to Cecelia Espenoza, who gained 55% of the vote.
