County clerks across the 3rd Congressional District began publishing their latest results Thursday from ballots mailed from outside the state by Colorado voters, and incumbent U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert appears to be holding her lead over Adam Frisch as the first results trickled in.
Boebert, a far-right Republican, took the lead in the race a week ago and held fast. As of 11:14 a.m. Thursday, the latest ballots put her in the lead by 1,097 votes, just a few less than the 1,122-vote margin she had over Frisch at the end of last week, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Political experts had expected a landslide victory for Boebert, but she’s only ahead now by a fraction of a percent. Her margin of victory sits outside the state’s automatic recount threshold of about 810 votes, a number equal to half of 1 percent of the top vote-getter’s tally.
If Boebert’s margin shrinks below that threshold — or if Frisch requests a recount — a winner in the race won’t be officially declared until sometime next month when the recount process is finished. Recounts rarely change the outcome of a given race, however.
More ballots are likely to be reported to the Secretary of State’s Office throughout Thursday and possibly into Friday, so the results could still change.
The ballots being counted so long after election day are those sent from Colorado voters who mailed their ballots from out of state, which can be counted so long as they arrived before 11:59 p.m. Wednesday. Ballots requiring additional signature verification could be counted until then as well.
As of Thursday morning, neither candidate had declared victory or conceded.
Frisch tweeted his thanks for volunteers who helped voters fix and count ballots throughout the election, one of the country’s closest.
“Running in this race, getting to know so many people in my district & hearing your stories has been an honor of a lifetime,” Frisch said on the social media site. “Stay tuned.”
Boebert didn’t address her race on Twitter but celebrated that Republicans had secured a majority, albeit a slim one, in the House, meaning a member of the GOP will replace U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
“The Pelosi era is over,” Boebert tweeted. “Good riddance!”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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