When U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was still the incumbent candidate for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, Democratic challenger Adam Frisch had to fight for attention to his platform.
Scandals and controversies surrounding Boebert (R-Colo.) sucked all the oxygen from the room. Despite Frisch’s efforts to stick to policy arguments and to steer clear of attacking Boebert over her personal life, his campaign kept catching blame for negative attention on his Republican opponent, he said.
Frisch visited Durango on Saturday, and after a morning bout of pickleball at Schneider Park, he was ready to talk politics.
He said the great thing about Boebert turning away from CD3 to run for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District is that there’s now room for conversation about the issues that matter to people, such as water, agriculture and health care.
Although the issues Frisch is running on remain the same, Boebert’s announcement to run for office in CD4 isn’t the only change since his first campaign for office in 2022 when he lost to Boebert by just 546 votes.
The cost of living, immigration and exhaustion with politics are all familiar topics with an amplified presence in voters’ minds this year, he said.
Aspen, Vail, Steamboat Springs, Crested Butte and Telluride were the centers of the housing crisis in Colorado three or four years ago, he said, acknowledging that Durango – which certainly struggled with its housing stock in 2022 – is somewhat of a special case.
Everyone’s talking about the housing shortage today, he said.
“It’s really hard to build a house for less than $400,000 or $500,000 no matter what you do,” he said. “Maybe you can build one for 300 bucks a foot or 200 bucks a foot, you’re still in for ($400,000).”
He said immigration is another topic that’s been long discussed, and it’s more prominent on people’s minds now than two years ago.
The ranching, farming, hospitality and health care industries want to see action on the border because they rely on it, he said. Even conservatives, while wanting more border patrols, also want more border judges to make legal entry into the country more efficient and fair, he said.
“I would say, 80% of even the really conservative people want the border fixed, not so much that they want it closed, because they know they need it,” he said.
He said there is without a doubt a border crisis, with 12 million or 13 million people in the country who need a formal onboarding process. He said they occupy jobs, attend church and school and need a real working legal entry process. At the same time, crime is down and isn’t voters’ focus except in regard to the fentanyl crisis.
And he emphasized the United States’ economy cannot grow by halting immigration, period.
The trick is to create a more secure border with a more orderly process while being more humanitarian about it, he added.
Frisch ended with a phrase he’s used often since his first bid to oust Boebert in 2022: He supports the “Get Stuff Done Party.”
“People are exhausted with politics,” he said.
He said Republicans and Democrats alike are frustrated and don’t feel either party is doing the best job in the District of Columbia.
cburney@durangoherald.com
