At a Trunk or Treat event this past Sunday, the parking lot of St. Anne’s Church in Pueblo was full of cars decorated for Halloween. Among the many adults handing out candy to the costumed kids was Adam Frisch, the Democratic candidate for the 3rd Congressional District.
“Hello, how are you? Happy Halloween” he said to a kid dressed as Buzz Lightyear before putting some Tootsie Rolls in his bag and then greeting the child’s parents and others. Some in the crowd asked for yard signs.
It was just another example of what Frisch has been doing day in and day out for almost three years now.
Frisch came within 546 votes of beating the district’s current Congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, in 2020. He rapidly tried to tee up a rematch, raising a lot of money and building on the support from his first run. But then Boebert changed the political calculus when she announced late last year she’d run for reelection in a different and more conservative district.
That pivot left him facing a more traditional — and tougher— race, against Republican Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney, in this Republican leaning district.
“I’ve been trying to convince people why they should vote for us, not just against someone,” he explained. “That’s a message that’s a lot clearer to be made because that national anger-tainment circus has mostly left the district.”
Frisch’s message to voters of all political stripes in Western and Southern Colorado is he’ll focus on the district, and will stand up to both parties, pointing out his calls to protect the district’s water, and the fact that he was one of the first Colorado Democrats to say President Joe Biden should drop out.
“I think that we've earned the trust of a lot of different people and people are not just robotic, running around in Democratic blue uniforms and Republican red uniforms. They are really sick and tired of that,” he said. “People want someone to show up.”
And show up is exactly what Frisch has done. He’s put more than 74,000 miles on his car campaigning in this vast district since his first run in 2022, including more than 130 visits to Pueblo. That attention to the area is part of what gained him the endorsement of Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham, a Republican.
Voter Pete Madrid was handing out candy at the Trunk or Treat dressed as Homer Simpson. The registered Democrat doesn’t always vote party line, but for this race, he said the choice was simple. “I always see Mr. Frisch here, for the last few years… coming to Pueblo, coming to my neighborhood. He talks the talk and walks the walk.”
For Frisch to have any shot at winning the race, he will have to do extra well here in the district’s most populous county. Pueblo has historically voted Democratic, making it somewhat of a counterbalance to the more Republican parts of the district. In 2022, he took Pueblo with about 4,000 more votes than Boebert. Some Democrats here think if more of their voters had turned out in ’22, Frisch could have won.
But Pueblo has shifted from blue to purple over the past decade. The county went from Obama to Trump to Biden, only by a few hundred votes in the last two contests. And Republicans have had some electoral victories at the local level in recent years, in this conservative Democratic city.
That trend has local Democrats worried.
“We've become quite complacent. I think you'll hear that from people who are involved,” explained Victoria Marquesen, secretary of the Pueblo Democratic Party. “And I think that was a wakeup call for a lot of people.”
This year, she said, the party is more organized, with more volunteers calling voters and door knocking, as well as more involvement from union members. “The real impact, I think, of the labor unions and their help in this is that I think we're seeing that base coming back and being energized more.”
Gary Thomas, a member of the executive committee of the Pueblo County Democrats, is worried about the Trump effect. Pueblo, a steel town that’s struggled even as the rest of the state has boomed, has many of the kind of traditionally Democratic voters who have been drawn toward Trump’s version of the GOP.
“I think Frisch plays well across the union/nonunion spectrum. However, I think Trump's populist call has dug into our union support,” he said.
Frisch could end up outperforming Vice President Kamala Harris, but Thomas is worried that former President Donald Trump could also help lift his opponent, Hurd.
That’s exactly what Michelle Gray, chair of the Republican Party in Pueblo is hoping for. Her job is getting Republicans elected, and she’s been urging party supporters to vote their entire ballot.
“I do see Pueblo changing. I think we have a lot more Republicans than we did in the past,” she said of the city.
While Gray is disappointed that the Republican mayor endorsed Frisch, she defends Hurd’s track record for visiting Pueblo, even if he hasn’t been there as often as Frisch.
“He was at the state fair parade. He had teams here at the Fiesta Day parade. He's been here campaigning, fundraising,” she said, adding that maybe information about those visits wasn’t as well publicized as they should have been.
In a district as vast as the 3rd — it covers 49,000 square miles, about the size of Mississippi — candidates have to make daily choices about where they prioritize their time.
Frisch left the Pueblo event with plans to hit dozens of other counties in the district before election night, hoping to show that retail politics can still play well in this age of nationalized congressional races.
For Hurd’s campaign, the electoral math means balancing any efforts in purple Pueblo with the need to energize Republican voters in the district’s much redder places.
Republicans work to lift up Hurd
One of those Republican strongholds is Mesa County, the second-most populous county in the district.
On Monday, a volunteers came through the local GOP headquarters in Grand Junction to pick up signs and head out to knock on doors.
“It's been pretty busy, having people come in looking for mostly Trump signs, Trump paraphernalia,” said Alice Bumgarner, chair of the Mesa County Republican party.
She said party volunteers in this conservative stronghold are enthusiastic about getting to vote for Trump again. But when it comes to the congressional race, even though it’s a priority for the party to hold the seat, Bumgarner said there’s less excitement. People here knew Boebert. Hurd just has much less name recognition, and a very different political style.
“A little more subdued kind of race,” she said of the seat that’s important for the Republican Party to keep in their column. “I think sometimes people are trying to figure (it) out, being used to Lauren and her energy. It's just a different kind of feel for everybody.”
Stopping by the office on that day was longtime Republican volunteer Richard Hathorne. Hathorne who sported a bright red “Ultra MAGA” describes himself as very conservative and said he was sad to see Boebert go.
“I like her policies,” he said. “She's very connected with Trump and she believes in America first, or Americans first.”
Even though he prefers Boebert’s outspoken style to the more low-key Hurd, Hathorne said he’s still supporting Hurd. In fact, he’s put up and maintained large signs for Hurd along freeways and other high traffic areas in the county.
“He's not as aggressive or vocal as Lauren, but that's who he is. That's his personality and hopefully it'll work,” he said.
Hurd was in Grand Junction recently and met with volunteers in the party office to answer questions. Karen Kulp, who coordinates volunteers and manages the office, said it was important for supporters to see him face to face because, she acknowledged, Hurd doesn’t go to as many local events. She said the response was positive.
“It's been difficult because Jeff has such a big area and he's had to be spread so thin that he hasn't always been available in Mesa County,” she said. “Some people may interpret that as him not caring about Mesa County, but that's not the case at all. He just hasn't had the time.”
Hurd has largely run on a message of getting things done in Congress, compromising when necessary and not making a national splash with his behavior. At one debate he noted, straightfaced, that he considered it a compliment to be called as interesting as a bread sandwich.
“That’s okay, rural Colorado doesn't need excitement," he went on to say. “I'm principled, but I'm also pragmatic.”
For voters, the relatively subdued nature of this race may also mean less concern about its outcome.
Janice Frame lives in Palisade. She’s proudly supporting Harris and plans to vote for Frisch. But if the congressional race goes the other way and the 3rd District sends Hurd to Congress?
“I think he'll be fine,” she replied.
