Key Points
– Adam Frisch claimed that he had trouble winning over Democrats and commentators.
–After being elected to a second term, Lauren Boebert will serve in a Congress that is controlled by Republicans.
–According to experts, it's uncertain whether national Democrats could have contributed to the seat's flip.
While many of the far-right Republicans who won seats in Congress in 2020 did so by winning by 20 percentage points or more, Adam Frisch, a former currency trader from western Colorado, was surprised to see that his own representative, Lauren Boebert, did not achieve the same results.
She defeated her Democratic opponent 51% to 45% but lost her home county by roughly 1,800 votes. Frisch got the bright idea that Boebert might be defeated in the general election if a moderate Democrat like him could win the primary.
He almost had it right.
In a close contest last month for the midterms, Frisch fell short of Boebert by around 500 votes. However, he did so as a largely unsupported candidate who struggled to gain the respect of national pollsters and pundits for the majority of the campaign. He also ran a campaign without receiving any financial support from national Democrats.
Did Democrats lose a chance to defeat one of their most vocal critics in an election where far-right candidates struggled and Democrats performed much better than expected?
Frisch recalled his proposal to national Democratic campaign officials for money after winning the June primary: "I said, 'Listen, this could be the emotional win for the country and the party if you actually put some investment in here.'"
There is disagreement among experts as to whether funding from national Democrats would have aided Frisch in winning the election or whether such backing would have given the Boebert campaign more ammunition to link the moderate Democrat to leaders like President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Even Frisch is hesitant to say whether having more money would have aided his campaign, made him seem like a national Democrat, or sparked a political arms race between the two parties.
What is known is that Boebert, who is notorious for making derogatory remarks about Muslim colleagues and being against LGBT rights, will be returning to the House for a second two-year term with a Republican majority. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who may be the chamber's next speaker, promised to provide extreme right-wing lawmakers committee slots and a louder microphone for representatives like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
As the race drew near, Frisch claimed he continued contacting national Democrats but received no meaningful response. Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the congressional campaign arm of the Democratic party, said that his organisation "spoke with Team Frisch on many occasions throughout this election cycle," but he made no mention of any of Frisch's specific allegations of his outreach.
After winning the primary, Frisch approaches Democrats for backing.
A moderate Democrat, Frisch ran for office on platforms that included halting inflation and preserving energy output in his state. He claimed that it was challenging for a moderate to win the Democratic primary, but after he did so in June, he started making pitches to national Democrats.
Frisch claimed that his initial appeal to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, took place while he was in Washington, D.C., in July. He said that polls from his campaign showed him trailing Boebert by 7 percentage points, but campaign staff believed Frisch should have trailed by 12 points due to the district's demographics (which is primarily rural) and Boebert's incumbent status.
Despite some promising statements, the DCCC declined to offer financial assistance, leaving Frisch outmatched. Compared to Frisch's $5.2 million, Boebert raised $6.7 million, with $2.2 million of it coming directly from Frisch. Boebert also got a $413,000 ad boost from the campaign arm of the House Freedom Caucus, but no similar PACs funded their own advertisements for Frisch.
Pundits and pollsters predicted the Democrats would lose the House by a significant margin around the time of the DCCC conversation. According to the Cook Political Report, the average national Republican could win Frisch's district by about seven percentage points, but he acknowledged that party leaders might prefer to invest money in more competitive districts rather than his.
Frisch recalled that the attitude was, "We have other easier races that we can focus on by a long shot." "I understand that statistics are significant, but what about the emotional victory?"
Frisch claimed that despite his outreach efforts in the run-up to election day, "never received a reaction of substance" even though internal polling indicated he was closing the gap with Boebert. After the polls closed and it became more apparent that there would be a recount of the close result, his campaign did receive legal assistance from the DCCC.
Frisch claimed that he would have used any extra funds for media purchases in the sizable western Colorado district, which makes up about half of the state.
Hard to say if Frisch could have turned the district with extra money.
In that complicated environment, it's difficult to say whether one tactical choice would have made a difference, but it might have, according to Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State University.
When choosing which candidates to support during an election season, Saunders said the DCCC and other groups that donate to campaigns must "behave strategically" due to their limited resources.
45% of voters in the district are unaffiliated, which is over half of all voters. 24% of those remaining are registered Democrats, while 31% are enrolled Republicans. According to Saunders, the majority of these voters are not independents and that 70% of them are likely to lean one way or the other.
They share the same partisan views as those who identify as Republicans or Democrats, he claimed.
Despite giving the race a solid Republican endorsement, David Wasserman, the House editor for the nonpartisan election analysis newsletter Cook Political Report, claimed that both Republicans and Democrats had grossly overestimated Boebert's frailties. However, he advised against presuming support from national Democrats would have helped Frisch win.
"Had national Democrats invested more in this race, it might not have helped Frisch because, first of all, Frisch was well funded on his own, and second, trying to nationalise this race might've played into Boebert's claim that D.C. liberals and Nancy Pelosi are out to get her," Wasserman said.
He cited how Democrat Marie Perez defeated Republican Joe Kent, a supporter of Donald Trump, for a seat in Washington without assistance from the party's national leadership.
Frisch may have found it advantageous to appear to be running a homegrown campaign, according to Wasserman.
In what ways does this affect 2024?
By 2024, Frisch will be more recognised in Democratic circles for having nearly defeated Boebert, who would be a two-term incumbent in a Republican-led House.
Because they are already well-known in their constituencies, incumbents can spread their message with less money. According to an analysis by OpenSecrets, a group that monitors political spending, incumbents running for Congress raised more than twice as much money as their rivals.
Due to his growing name recognition, Wasserman predicted that Frisch's fundraising efforts in 2024 may expand by a factor of two. He emphasised, though, that this might not necessarily help him win.
"The issue," said Wasserman, referring to former President Donald Trump, "is that if Trump is back on the ballot, the district's electorate is likely to become more favourable to Republicans, judging by the low turnout on the Republican side this time."
According to Taylor of the DCCC, Colorado voters this year demonstrated that "extremism, intolerance, and division" were not wanted in their state by rejecting them.
Although we narrowly lost this time, the voters will have another chance to decide in two years, he added.
Frisch said he is trying to figure out what went wrong in his 2022 campaign, but he would not say whether he will run in 2024.
"Losers blame other people when they lose," Frisch stated. "When victors lose, they look for areas where they could have improved, and that's what I'm doing."
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