Colorado’s primary elections on Tuesday will pick the winners in several tight intraparty races among the state’s Republicans, including in two competitive House districts that could help determine control of Congress in November.
Despite a series of personal scandals, Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican who narrowly avoided defeat in 2022, is the favorite to beat a crowded field of other Republican primary candidates in Ken Buck’s former 4th congressional district, which leans more heavily Republican.
In the former Boebert district Adam Frischthe democrat who came within 546 votes to defeat her in 2022, he will likely face a tighter race against the winner of the Republican primary. District voters supported Trump with 53% of the votes in 2016 and 2020.
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Frisch’s potential opponents include Jeff Hurd, who is seen as a more mainstream and traditional Republican, and Ron Hanks, who calls himself “pro-Trump warrior” who attended the January 6, 2021 rally that preceded the attack on the US Capitol and claimed that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. Hanks has said publicly that he did not participate in the breach of the US Capitol. His Republican colleagues refused to censure him for his actions that day, Colorado Public Radio reported in 2021, and his current primary bid for Congress has been endorsed by the state Republican Party.
Colorado’s most competitive race for U.S. House this fall will likely be in the Eighth Congressional District, where first-term congresswoman Yadira Caraveo is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. His Republican opponent will be state Rep. Gabe Evans, an Army veteran and former police officer, or former state Rep. Janak Joshi, a retired doctor who has the support of the state party.
Colorado’s primary landscape was reshaped by sudden dismissal this march by Buck, a former Republican congressman and staunch conservative. Buck cited his frustration with his own party in his resignation, telling CNN: “Instead of having decorum – instead of acting professionally – this place has really devolved into fighting and nonsense.”
Fierce Republican infighting during the primary elections has sparked accusations that state GOP Chairman Dave Williams is conducting an “inquisition” and has “decided that he must cleanse and purge the Republican Party,” as the former GOP chairman put it. Republican Dick Wadhams at an event hosted by Axios in Denver.
Williams faced accusations that he misused his state party’s email list to advertise his campaign for Congress and that he spent party money to buy mailers that included an attack on political consultant and radio host Jeff Crank, his top Republican opponent.
The Republican Party chairman also faced criticism for asking party candidates to fill out a form political quiz This was also an explicit test of loyalty, with questions like “Do you support President Trump’s populist, America-first agenda?”
Williams is “cannibalizing the Republican Party so he can go to Congress,” Kelly Maher, a veteran GOP operative who filed a complaint against Williams with the Federal Election Commission, told the Associated Press.
Buck, the former Republican member of Congress who resigned from his position in March, it triggered a special election for a candidate who will serve the remaining six months of his term. The race appears on the ballot along with Tuesday’s regularly scheduled primary.
Former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez is seen as the likely winner in this race, but is seen as a placeholder who plans to step down after the winner of the general election takes office in January.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
