I just got off the phone
with Representative Bobert.
I called her to formally
concede this election.
It's a pinch me moment at each
time that you're sent to Congress.
Thanks for joining us on 9 news.
Plus, I'm Chris Bianchi.
Congresswoman Lauren Bobert squeaked
by her Democratic opponent Adam Frish
by 550 votes pending a recount in
Colorado's third Congressional District,
a normally very Republican leaning district.
But Frisch's close near upset
of Bobert caught.
Many by surprise.
So for a bit more context on how
this race became so close and what
it might pretend for bobert's future
as well As for Colorado politics,
I spoke with Nine News anchor Kyle Clark.
We're now joined by Kyle Clark to discuss
the third Congressional District race,
which was obviously a lot closer than
anticipated with Lauren Bobert winning by
550 votes based still pending a recount.
But before we kind of get into
the dynamics of the race, college,
which is the reason we wanted
to bring you in 550 votes,
goes to a mandatory recount.
Is there any chance to think it's overturned?
I don't think that there's any
chance that it gets overturned.
Just if you look at past
recall history in Colorado,
we have a pretty good system for tallying
votes and not many votes change in a recount.
A recount is done by machine.
Why do you do it with machines
rather than humans?
Because machines are more
accurate than humans.
You can always go back and do hand
tallies of smaller groups of votes.
They do that with the audits every year,
but it will be counted again by the machines.
I wouldn't be surprised if
there's some votes here and there.
They have to go through and discern intent.
If somebody accidentally kind of
Marks and crosses out or whatever,
and there's a question about the election,
judges will look at that,
but the idea that that many
votes would swing.
Lauren Bober doesn't think it's
going to happen and a fish doesn't
think it's going to happen.
I don't think it's going to happen.
I should be the last person you
should believe about this stuff.
But I don't know of a credible
person who believes it would
shift. I mean, I'm fresh himself.
He conceded the race saying
don't spend your money on funding
a recount to the race itself.
Obviously a lot closer and
I think it was anticipated.
What were the dynamics behind a
race that a lot of people thought
that we would win by 10 plus points
being coming within 1/2 point.
I think there were a number
of different factors that.
Play there, because what you see
in the Bobert district in in C3
is not what happened in every
district around the country.
It wasn't just simply like,
apply this rule everywhere and
then here's how it applied in C3.
No, there's something special going on there.
And I think one thing that I underestimated,
I don't want to speak for other journalists.
It'd be great if other journalists would
talk about what they saw and didn't see,
but not a lot of folks appear
interested in that.
One thing that I didn't see was
the level of discontent with her.
And I think the reason why I failed
to see it was because it didn't
show up in the Republican primary.
She had a very credible Republican
challenger and state Senator Don
Coram was a moderate Republican.
He was kind of there to be able to
collect any anti bobart sentiment
that was existing in either the
Republican voting base or in the
unaffiliated voting base that was
interested in voting in the primary.
And he got smoked, he got rolled.
And so I looked at that and I just said,
all right,
Republicans are OK with what she's doing.
What ended up happening is
I think across Colorado,
Republican turn out was lower
than Republicans expected.
So those Republicans weren't
necessarily there for her.
I think that unaffiliated
broke towards fresh.
Democrats turned out for fresh.
Now, this is not my reporting,
but other journalists have looked at this,
and I and I believe that what they've
said is that if fresh had performed in
Pueblo the way police performed in Pueblo,
he would have won.
Now that's tough.
Polus isn't.
A company's got a lot of advantages.
He won his race by nearly twenty points.
But fresh underperformed some
other Democrats in Pueblo,
and it would have been enough
to put him over the top.
But clearly there's a lot more
dissatisfaction with Lauren Bober
in that district than we thought.
Let me preempt the next question.
Does this mean she's in trouble in two years?
I don't think so. Why?
I I don't think, but I didn't think
this was gonna be in trouble this time.
So again, like, why are we listening
to what I have to say about this
other than just simply I can tell you
what I look at and what it tells me.
She got caught napping, OK?
She got caught napping in the way that
Scott Tipton got caught napping when
she took him out in a GOP primary,
only tipped and lost,
and she's going to narrowly win.
Is she going to change her approach?
Is a tiger gonna become a vegetarian?
No. It only it only knows one thing.
They're like she's she's not
gonna change her approach.
Like like that is who Lauren Bober is.
She said to us plainly when she got
into the race for Congress originally
that she wasn't so much interested
in going there to legislate.
She want to go there to fight with people,
become famous, that kind of thing.
And she's delivered on that promise.
That's what she's done.
So the idea that somehow this would humble
her or change her approach or whatever else,
I don't think so.
I think she got one gear and she's
going to keep doing her one gear.
That said,
why do I think that she's
not going to be in trouble?
Years from now is because Republicans
will know they're going to have to
invest in that district to keep her,
to keep her out of a jam like this last time.
And I also think there's going to be
a lot of democratic infighting over
whether the best approach is to run a
centrist like fresh or to run a progressive.
And if you listen to the centrist,
they'll say run a centrist again,
run frish again,
and you'll hear progressives say no,
no, no, no, no.
We can keep the coalition that we built,
the anti bobert coalition,
and energize.
Progressives by running somebody who
is out more on the progressive side,
like your sole Sandoval who's
an organizer in the Pueblo area.
So I think Democrats are almost going to
be more divided there two years from now,
at least for the start of things.
And she's going to be a lot better
prepared to spend the copious
amounts of money that she can raise
because of the fact that so often
she's all around the country,
whether she's at Mar-a-lago with
Trump or she's doing end times events,
the the Christian nationalist events,
that kind of thing,
she has the ability to reach.
A lot of different audiences
and raised a lot of money.
Bring it home and spend it.
So that said,
somebody play this tape back two years
from now when Lauren Bobert loses.
OK, anything can happen.
But if you're asking me,
do I think she's going to be
in trouble two years from now?
No.
I think it'll be tougher to beat
her two years from now than now.
They came that close, yeah.
What if the Democrats also
invest more in this room?
I think they mostly stayed out. Sure they
they they could but but the situation
for Democrats and the in the next
couple of cycles is going to have
a lot of places where they have
to spend money and like is a,
I mean in district shift in
terms of their composition.
But I think the last time I looked
the third district was R + 9.
You're really going to put in money
to an R + 9 district against a
fundraising juggernaut and Lauren
Boubert just because people don't like
her and they don't like her style.
Now that that again was one of the
reasons why I did not see a close
race for her coming because I thought
that all the money that came in for
the Democrats was wish casting.
And you see that I mean the Democrats.
God bless our fantastic at throwing
enormous sums of money at people
who are very unlikely to win.
OK, look at some governor's races.
Look at Beto O'Rourke versus
Governor Abbott in Texas.
Beto got all this buzz.
He got all this money.
You guys backside handed to him.
It's taxes, you know.
I mean, look at Chris in Florida,
Charlie, Kristen, Florida, Stacey,
Abrams and Georgia Democrats.
They love the stars within the party.
More than they necessarily are willing
to accept the reality on the ground.
That said so that's what I thought
was going on with fresh when all
this late money comes in for fresh,
I thought it was people saying.
I don't like bobert.
And I I underestimated the amount of
discontent that there was there for her.
So yes,
it's possible that Democrats could
spend heavily to beat Boubert next time,
but are they really going to spend there
because a seat is a seat is a seat?
And would you not try to target
true swing districts or democratic
districts that have gotten away in
this last cycle than to come and play
in Colorado's third simply because
people don't like bobert on the left?
What about? Maybe an opening for a
primary challenger in two years.
Isn't there more conceivable
argument for a Don Coram or more
centrist Republican to say, hey,
she almost blew it in this very
Republican leaning district now?
Sure, I think it's possible.
I would guess that she would
get a primary challenge.
I think she would have one. Again,
I don't think it will be Don Quorum again.
I think Don Quorum is kind of at
the end of his political career.
I think that he felt like he should.
He wanted to be a statesman and step up
and say no, this is my Republican Party.
And Lauren Bobert said no, it's.
Mine, and she cleaned his clock.
I think she'll probably
get a primary challenge.
But the next two years she's going to
have the benefit of not just incumbency,
which she had this time around,
but of being in the House majority.
So she's actually going to be able to
point to a couple of things that passed
the house and say I had a hand in this,
I had a hand in this,
as opposed to just,
I've been loud for two years and
haven't really accomplished anything.
I mean, it was something to behold
to watch Boubert try and take credit.
For spending for the district in
bills that she voted against,
but that was the reality.
Being in the minority and also being in
an even smaller minority of Republicans
who just voted against a ton of stuff.
There are only about two dozen
Republicans who just vote
against everything in the House,
and Bobert was reliably in that group.
But then you would have her come home
and say I helped secure this funding
because she said put this funding in a bill.
The funding goes in the bill,
she votes no, it passes,
and then she takes credit.
For like,
it's kind of convoluted,
showing the only one who did that,
but the next two years she's going to have
a different story to tell about things
that the Republican caucus has done,
provided that.
They have some semblance of functionality
and you don't have a House Speaker
who's so severely compromised by
the Marjorie Taylor Greens and
the Lauren Bobert's of the world
that they can't get anything done.
I guess one final thought too would be
that maybe at the margin you said that
her rhetoric is not going to change,
largely by and large,
but maybe does she make more
visits back to Colorado Springs,
to Pueblo, to Grand Junction,
maybe shows face a bit more
instead of maybe the perception
that she is a bit more national.
That seems to me to be the
easiest thing to fix, right?
Because I mean she can go to an end times
conference and she can talk about the,
you know, coming Apocalypse and things
like that to raise your stature.
She could do one of those events
in the third district, I guess.
You know, I mean I guess, you know,
President Trump is not here,
so she doesn't have that draw the way
that he is a draw at Mar-a-lago for.
But I feel like the easiest thing for
her to change would not be her rhetoric,
but exactly as you said,
just show up more.
And you could see her team starting to
push back on this idea that she isn't.
Even interested in legislating there,
you can tell there's a tone change
from her folks about no,
she really is going to do this and
going to do that or whatever else she
was celebrating earlier this week that
she ended up on a Policy Committee.
So basically this is a group that
tells Republican leadership,
like, why don't we do this?
Why don't we do that?
So she may try to recast herself
as somebody who is interested
or knowledgeable about policy,
which is certainly not what she's
ran as when she got in.
Or what she really ran as two years into
her term. Any final takeaways
or thoughts that we recovered?
I mean, listen, there were a bunch of us
who did not see that as a close race.
And I would love to hear from other people
who didn't think it was going to be a close
race about what their post analysis says.
Because at the end of the day,
like, I'm just one guy looking at
what I was looking at, you know,
and I think, you know, I think.
I'll be. Maybe less skeptical of
late polling than I used to be,
because a lot of late polling is garbage.
It's just stuff that's thrown out to
motivate voters and things like that.
And there's some late polling
that showed fresh close.
So maybe, maybe I'll be less skeptical
of that and less skeptical of where
Democrats are putting their money late,
because I did write some of
that off as wish casting.
But I think at the end of the day,
what we're looking at in the
third Congressional District is
a very unique situation because
she is such a unique candidate.
That a district that was moved
to be so much safer for her ends
up almost slipping away.
It's just it's mind boggling.
So what takeaways do we have
from 2 years from now?
I don't know.
I think a lot of folks in politics
will say the mistake that we make
is either people in politics or
people observing politics is that
we look in the rearview mirror
to figure out what's ahead of us.
So at some point we got to stop doing
the rearview thing and we've got to
look ahead and say what are people
in the district saying about her?
How are things going?
But it was certainly a humbling.
Experience because at the end of the day,
I don't want to predict races.
I'm not in the business of saying,
you know, before Election Day, like,
here's what I think is going to win.
But as journalists, we should tell people,
here's the range of potential outcomes.
We do that and we do that in every race.
It is the same way that we told you
that the governor's race showed
no signs of being competitive.
There's a 20 point blowout.
We said the Senate race is likely
to be closer,
but it's still a tough hill to
climb for Republicans.
You know, if I would have guessed,
which I didn't publicly before that race,
I have thought Michael Bennett
was going to win by five points.
Michael Bennett told us publicly
afterwards he was going to win by 8.
He won by 13. So was that a surprise to me?
Yeah.
And not an enormous one,
but it was a surprise to Michael Bennett.
Yep,
surprise to him too.
So even with all the information
possible in the world,
surprises happened because voters
have their say in the end.
And in the end of the third
Congressional District,
a lot of voters told Lauren
Bobert that they're not
interested in Hershtik.
But that said 500 some voters
liked it more than disliked it.
So she's going to do it for two more
years. Final thing, do I get the
Marshall Zellinger treatment?
Maybe we go down to the public.
By Smalls get some suits.
Ohh yeah. Two years.
This is. This is when Marshall was
talking about how on election night,
Jared Polis, Democrat,
was leading in the governor's
race in Douglas County, which was
Republican Heidi Ganahl's home county,
the reddest county in the metro area.
And I said there's no way
that that's going to hold.
If that result holds and
Polis wins Douglas County,
I'll drive you down to the outlet
mall and we'll buy a new suit.
And as it turned out,
by the end of election night,
Polish was still leading by not a lot.
And the margin just kind of flipped.
Um, and at the end of the day,
Heidi Ganahl 1 Douglas County by the
slimmest of margins, which I think,
yes, Douglas County is changing.
There are more Democrats there
than there used to be.
I also think,
and maybe this conversation for another day,
that Heidi Ganahl ran one of the worst
campaigns that anybody has seen in a really,
really long time.
I mean, she lost by she lost by 20 points,
and her closing argument was about furries.
And and sidling up to a guy who has
suggested the governor should be
hung like those do not appear to
be winning arguments in Colorado.
So Douglas County close this
time around for the Republican.
I don't know that it will be close next time,
but also places change over
two years or four years.
So we shall see no suit for you.
Yeah, I guess that's how we end. No.
See for me. But, Kyle, thanks for
your time. Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure.