What scared Lauren Boebert out of a congressional district?
What scared Lauren Boebert out of a congressional district?
Adam Frisch put a MAGA extremist on defense by putting democracy on offense.
On the third day of Christmas, my true love the most vulnerable previously unchallenged extremist in the House sent quite the present: Lauren Boebert announced she was leaving Colorado’s 3rd congressional district.
It’s more evidence of our key theses: politics is volatile, extremism is punished by voters, and happy warriors will win out over ideologues.
The best way to protect democracy is to practice it, and Adam Frisch knows how: with authenticity, optimism, and math. The math on beating Boebert was simple but ignored by both parties, the race ratings agencies, and the data-based election forecasters in 2022.
Our case study from Win The Middle shows how Frisch approached it, in his own words:
Consider the facts about CO-03:
At the start of the 2022 cycle, it was considered a “Safe Republican” seat by the parties and independent ratings agencies … but it wasn’t. We included it in our quarterly “Conceding Democracy” reports as ignored-but-winnable because of incumbent weaknesses and potentially volatile electorates.
During the 2022 cycle, CO-03 got $0 from the national parties but Frisch ran an aggressive independent-themed campaign targeting voters in the middle. Accordingly, we made it one of only two House-specific investments.
After the 2022 election, Frisch was rated as the number-two overperforming challenger, across all districts in the country, relative to how Democrats were expected to fare. He ran a centrist campaign with ads about how he was a conservative businessman who supports the Second Amendment and wants to secure the border.
After declaring another challenge to Boebert in 2023, Frish raised more money than any other challenger in the country. The fact that Frisch is the number one-fundraiser tells you everything you need to know about where the Democratic “base” actually is.
Frisch still has a path to Congress through the middle. The leading Republican to launch a bid is Ron Hanks, a MAGA election denier who lost the primary for Senate then endorsed the Libertarian rather than support the relatively moderate GOP nominee. Frisch recently scored the endorsement of the Blue Dog caucus, led by the trio of dynamic rural Democrats who won Trump districts last cycle.
We analyze districts through a simple set of heuristics:
Opponent who undermined democracy (and preferably has other baggage) - Ron Hanks is an election denier
District deemed “Safe Republican” by ratings agencies — but winnable with the right candidate - Ratings agencies are already using the Boebert shift to diminish Democratic chances in the district
Leadership in-district of courageous and credible Republicans willing to vouch for a moderate Democrat - Moderate Colorado Republicans have backed Frisch
Frisch, again, fits the model - and may need even more help now. Head to his website to stay updated, read on below for the rest of our case study, and check out other Win The Middle case studies here.
Technically, today is the 12th Day of Christmas. Another present? We only need five more drummers drumming MAGA extremists out of Congress.
CO-03 Case Study - Background
Quick Stats
Year: 2022
District: Colorado’s 3rd (CO-03)
Incumbent: Rep. Lauren Boebert (R)
Partisan Lean (PVI): R+7
Colorado’s 3rd congressional district spans much of the state’s western half and has been represented by MAGA torchbearer Lauren Boebert since January 2021. Boebert won her seat in 2020 by primarying then-incumbent Scott Tipton from the right and beating a former sociology professor in the general election. That year, Donald Trump won the district with just 52.9% of the vote.
As the 2022 cycle began, it appeared Boebert would again face a progressive challenger in the general election (all but guaranteeing re-election in her right-of-center district). But with just days to go before the filing deadline, a former independent named Adam Frisch jumped into the race to mount a challenge from the middle.
Frisch wasn’t a conventional Democrat — and he made that clear from the outset. Not only was Frisch a registered independent until he filed to run, but he was a businessman and former Aspen City Council member with a track record of governing on fiscal responsibility. When he entered the race, his pitch to voters was simple: he would unite Democrats, independents (called “unaffiliated voters” in Colorado), and moderate Republicans in a cross-partisan coalition to put a stop to the Boebert circus.
Heading into November, everyone from the pundits to national party operatives had all but written off CO-03 as unwinnable by a Democrat. It had been ranked as solidly Republican by the major ratings agencies and many felt that Boebert had a strong grip on the seat (despite Donald Trump’s relatively weak performance in the district).
But none of that mattered to Frisch, who ran the numbers and realized he only needed to flip roughly one out of every 20 Trump voters in the district to win the seat. After securing a narrow victory in the Democratic primary, he took his promise on the road, criss-crossing the district and reaching out to voters of all backgrounds and persuasions with a bipartisan promise to restore sanity and common-sense. In Frisch’s own words:
“I drove 24,000 miles around Western and Southern Colorado with my son recruiting people to what my mom calls the ‘pro-normal party.’”
Not only did Frisch meet CO-03 voters where they were physically, but he met them where they stood ideologically, too. His campaign centered around building a “tri-partisan coalition” of Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans. His website described him as a “patriotic mainstream businessman” with “the experience to work with both parties” on kitchen table issues like inflation, jobs, and public safety and highlighted his endorsement by Boebert’s moderate Republican primary challenger, Don Coram.
He also touted a robustly-branded “Republicans for Frisch” operation and ran advertisements designed to appeal to conservative and middle-of-the-road voters.
Results
As Election Night 2022 commenced, CO-03 began to stand out.
Far from the blowout the experts had forecast (FiveThirtyEight expected the race to break for Boebert by a 14-point margin on November 9th), Frisch remained neck-and-neck with Boebert as batch after batch of votes were tallied — at certain points leading her by a few hundred votes.
The final results were so close that the race went to a recount, after whichit was confirmed that Frisch lost to Boebert by a razor-thin margin of just 546 votes. Not only did Frisch run more than five points ahead of Joe Biden’s 2020 margin, but he notched the strongest overperformance of the 2022 cycle in any Republican-held district where the Democrat received more than 35% of the vote.
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great post, super informative and locally relevant as a CO district 3 voter…