Establishment-backed Republican candidate Jeff Hurd has won his GOP primary for Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R) seat in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, according to a projection from Decision Desk HQ.
Hurd, an attorney in Grand Junction, won a competitive Republican contest over candidates including former state Rep. Ron Hanks (R), who had been elevated by Democrats who saw him as the weaker opponent in November.
Hurd, who enjoyed the backing of prominent Republicans in the state and the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity Action, launched his candidacy last August while Boebert was still planning to make another run for her current seat in the 3rd District.
However, Boebert later decided to run in the 4th Congressional District in eastern Colorado, a more solidly Republican House seat, to avoid another expensive and potentially close race in the 3rd — she won reelection in 2022 by fewer than 600 votes.
Hurd’s win is particularly notable given that a Democratic-aligned super PAC and Democratic candidate Adam Frisch’s campaign waded into the GOP primary, airing ads to either elevate Hanks, an election denier, or target the more mainstream Hurd over evading debates and questions around his stances.
The idea behind Democrats’ strategy was to make Hanks seem like the more appealing conservative for GOP voters to cast ballots for in the primary, with the thinking being that his controversial views on things like the 2020 election would likely turn off moderate Republicans and independents in the general elections, making it easier for a Democrat to win the seat in November.
Democrats used this strategy during the 2022 Senate cycle when they sought to elevate Hanks over mainstream GOP candidate Joe O’Dea. Though O’Dea prevailed in the GOP primary, later losing to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) that November, Hanks did win in the 3rd Congressional District during that race.
Hurd’s win is a sigh of relief for Republicans in the state who see him as the more competitive candidate to win the seat in the fall. Prior to the primary, the nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rated the seat “lean Republican.”