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Unaffiliated voters make up the largest share of the electorate in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, which spans the Western Slope into Pueblo and southeastern Colorado.
At 47% of the district’s active registered voters, they will decide who represents the area in Washington D.C. starting next year. Republicans made up 29% of the active registered electorate in the district as of Oct.1, while registered Democrats made up 22%.
Voters’ two major-party options are Democrat Adam Frisch, a former Aspen city councilman, and Republican Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney. One of those men will replace Republican U.S. Lauren Boebert, who switched congressional districts to run for reelection this year after nearly losing to Frisch in the 3rd District in 2022.
During Boebert’s first term, The Colorado Sun reached out to unaffiliated voters in the district to hear their views of Boebert. Partnering with journalism students at Fort Lewis College in Durango, The Sun recently reached out to those same voters to gauge their feelings on their options this year.
Here’s what the three unaffiliated voters who agreed to talk to us said:
Cooper said she’s not sure who she voted for in 2020 or 2022, but she’s pretty sure that despite her conservative views it wasn’t Lauren Boebert.
“I don’t support her,” Cooper said.
While she says she needs to do more research on this upcoming election, Cooper feels that her values are more in line with Hurd’s.
“I just feel like if we could balance what’s going on with the decisions of the governor, with maybe some more conservative values and views, we would maybe have a little bit more harmony,” she said.
She feels that Hurd embodies the family values and ethics of small town people, and would benefit the economy of Colorado.
“I just would prefer to maybe have more of a balance in the scales, as far as being able to have opinions from both sides and not so heavy on the left,” she said.
Before the 2022 election, Cooper told The Sun that she felt Frisch had a better grasp on Coloradans’ needs but that his views were too liberal for her. At the time, she planned to write in a candidate because of her dislike for Boebert, who she said was “more focused on attention than getting stuff done.”
Burt, who voted for Boebert in 2020 and 2022 despite concerns about her being too extreme, plans to vote for Hurd this year.
Burt said his top issues are immigration, housing and the economy. Frisch, from Burt’s perspective, is not best suited to tackle those issues.
“I won’t vote for a Democrat ever again after this, after what they’ve done to the border,” he said. “I live in the middle of (expletive) nowhere, and we’ve got illegal problems all the way up here.”
Burt, who has previously worked in construction and oil and gas, said he’s also very concerned by the regulations placed on housing, and feels that Democrats can’t be trusted to fix a housing crisis.
“Our policies in this country, especially here in this district, because we’re such a heavy oil district, they’ve screwed us,” he said. “They’ve screwed the state of Colorado. We’ve lost millions of oilfield jobs, and they’re never coming back.”
Hirano, a copier technician from Craig who believes he backed Boebert in 2020 and 2022 despite calling her “king of crazy,” says he will probably vote for Hurd this election.
He said he tends to gravitate towards conservative candidates, but is still registered as an unaffiliated voter.
“I’m conservative, so I kind of back conservative-thinking people,” Hirano said.
Before the 2022 election, Hirano told The Sun that he was concerned about partisanship, as well as the economy. He also said he viewed abortion restriction as a limit on freedom.
Repinski and Tucker are journalism students at Fort Lewis College in Durango. Colorado Sun editor/staff writer Jesse Paul oversaw their work.
