After a recount verified her narrow victory in her reelection campaign, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) was able to officially secure another term in the House on Monday. With just 546 votes separating her from her Democratic challenger Adam Frisch, Lauren Boebert, a extreme right Republican candidate won the election.
Although Colorado state law required a recount due to the close race, Frisch, a conservative Democrat, conceded to Boebert last month and acknowledged that the recount was highly unlikely to change the result.
With Boebert’s victory, Republicans now control a majority of seats in the House. Despite this, the contest was unexpectedly close considering Colorado’s 3rd District’s strong GOP lean. In 2020, former President Trump won the region by almost 8 percentage points.
Since being voted to Congress for the first time two years ago, Boebert has become embroiled in a number of controversy, including her alleged support for the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory.
Frisch gained a slim lead in the vote count despite the GOP’s edge in Colorado’s 3rd District, giving Democrats confidence that they would be able to win a Republican-held seat in a difficult political climate.
But in the days that followed the election, Frisch’s lead disappeared. Boebert ultimately won the preliminary vote, but by a slim margin of a percentage point. A race is automatically subject to a recount if the margin of victory is half a percentage point or less of the total votes cast for the winner, according to state law.
Four votes total were altered after the recount. Boebert suffered three losses and Frisch a gain. Frisch received 49.89% of the votes, while the congresswoman received 50.06%.
After the election on November 8th, election authorities continued to tally votes throughout the sizable 3rd Congressional District of the state. Former Aspen City Council member Frisch, a Democrat, initially had the lead but eventually lost it to Boebert. In the end, preliminary vote totals put Silt resident Boebert just 554 votes ahead of Frisch.
At that time, the congresswoman proclaimed victory, and Frisch agreed, but they both realised the vote count wasn’t yet complete. Due to Boebert’s razor-thin victory, an automatic recount was mandated by the state’s election statutes, which Secretary of State Jena Griswold formally declared at the end of last month.
