The Associated Press said the election in Colorado’s sprawling 3rd Congressional District is too close to call. The AP will await the results of a possible recount before calling the match. With nearly all the votes counted, incumbent Bobert leads Fries by about 0.17 percentage points, or 554 votes out of 327,000 votes counted. The unexpectedly narrow margin for Bobert, one of former President Donald Trump’s staunchest supporters in Congress, was the latest sign that Trump’s influence with Republican voters could be waning amid a nationwide dispute over the direction of the Republican Party. . It’s a question some Republican leaders have raised, blaming Trump in part for their dismal midterm results, even as the former president moved to launch his 2024 presidential bid. “America is tired of the circus, the lack of respect for our institutions and our democracy, and tired of the lack of civility in our speech,” Fries said. The Democrat added that he hasn’t ruled out another run for the seat in 2024. Predictably, pundits and the political establishment largely considered Frisch’s campaign a futility, but the narrow margin is its own small victory for the Democrat. “We’ve been written off by the political class, we’ve been written off by the donor class, and we’ve been written off by the political media,” Fries told the AP. “I wish more people didn’t take nine months to call me.” Fries said he supports a mandatory recount, but that it would be unrealistic to think he would flip enough votes to win. He called on Bobert to concede the match. In Colorado, a mandatory recount is triggered when the margin of votes between the top two candidates is equal to or less than 0.5% of the top candidate’s vote total. That margin was about 0.34% on Friday. Frisch’s comments come after Bobert’s win late Thursday in a video posted on Twitter of her standing in front of the U.S. Capitol. “Come January, you can be sure of two things,” Bobert said before thanking her supporters, “I will be sworn in for my second term as your congressman and the Republicans can finally make Pelosi’s House his House again People”. In Trump’s mold, Bobert’s defiant style has stoked anti-establishment angst and won loyal followers on the right. With frequent TV appearances and an almost household name, the campaign cash is pouring in — he’s raised $6.6 million over the past two years, an astronomical sum for a freshman member of the House. Fries campaigned on a largely conservative platform and against what he called Bobert’s “antics” and “rage.” The former city councilman in the upscale city of Aspen hoped to woo disgruntled Republicans and build a bipartisan political coalition. He rarely indicated he was a Democrat on the campaign trail and supported removing Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, saying he wanted to lower the partisan temperature in Washington. It was an indirect dig at Bobert who resonated with voters in a heavily rural district that, while conservative, has often supported pragmatists. “We’ve shown the country that extremist politicians can be defeated, loud voices are not invincible, and voices won’t solve problems,” Fries said.
