Months after falling short to Lauren Boebert in closest race of 2022, Adam Frisch says he will run again
Adam Frisch at a debate with incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert in Grand Junction, Colorado, Sept. 10, 2022. Photo by RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
By Adam Kovac February 14, 2023
A rematch is coming to Colorado as a Jewish candidate who narrowly lost to Lauren Boebert in 2022 has announced plans to run again.
On Tuesday morning, Adam Frisch released a video unveiling his candidacy to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. Boebert, a vocal supporter of Donald Trump who has also expressed her belief in an array of conspiracy theories, has represented the district since 2021.
Frisch, a 55-year-old businessman who sat on the Aspen City Council between 2011 and 2019, had originally been given little chance of unseating Boebert, but their first faceoff resulted in Boebert prevailing by just 546 votes, making it the closest race in the country.
In the campaign announcement video, Frisch played up the underdog status of his original run and his ties to rural America. He grew up on a Montana tribal reservation before his family relocated to Minneapolis. He obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado.
He also took aim at Boebert, calling her “everything that is wrong with Congress,” citing her support of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and strong opposition to abortion.
“She is part of the entertainment circus that is tearing our country apart,” he said.
Frisch has described himself as a “moderate, pragmatic Jew,” and ran his campaign accordingly. While he took progressive positions on abortion, he was also a vocal supporter of law-abiding gun owners. Boebert, who ran a gun-themed restaurant prior to her election, has made her pro-firearm position one of the defining aspects of her time in Congress. Among her many controversies, she once asked a group of religious Jews visiting the Capitol if they were there to do “reconnaissance” and has said she supports the Christian church taking control of the U.S. government.
Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, which is largely rural but also includes the cities of Aspen and Grand Junction, is home to around 6,000 Jews who make up around 1% of the population.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
