{"id":25082,"date":"2024-11-01T11:56:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T17:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-a-few-unaffiliated-voters-who-disliked-boebert-feel-about-their-options-now\/"},"modified":"2024-11-01T17:56:34","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T17:56:34","slug":"how-a-few-unaffiliated-voters-who-disliked-boebert-feel-about-their-options-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-a-few-unaffiliated-voters-who-disliked-boebert-feel-about-their-options-now\/","title":{"rendered":"How a few unaffiliated voters who disliked Boebert feel about their options now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Former
Former Aspen City Councilman Adam Frisch, left, a Democrat, and Grand Junction attorney Jeff Hurd, a Republican. The candidates are running for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Unaffiliated voters make up the largest share of the electorate in Colorado\u2019s 3rd Congressional District, which spans the Western Slope into Pueblo and southeastern Colorado.<\/p>\n

At 47% of the district\u2019s active registered voters, they will decide who represents the area in Washington D.C. starting next year. Republicans made up 29% of the active registered electorate in the district as of Oct.1, while registered Democrats made up 22%.<\/p>\n

Voters\u2019 two major-party options are<\/a> Democrat Adam Frisch, a former Aspen city councilman, and Republican Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney. One of those men will replace Republican U.S. Lauren Boebert, who switched congressional districts<\/a> to run for reelection this year after nearly losing to Frisch<\/a> in the 3rd District in 2022.<\/p>\n

During Boebert\u2019s first term, The Colorado Sun reached out to unaffiliated voters<\/a> in the district to hear their views of Boebert. Partnering with journalism students at Fort Lewis College in Durango, The Sun recently reached out to those same voters to gauge their feelings on their options this year.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what the three unaffiliated voters who agreed to talk to us said:<\/p>\n

Stephanie Cooper, 41, Grand Junction<\/div>\n

Cooper said she\u2019s not sure who she voted for in 2020 or 2022, but she\u2019s pretty sure that despite her conservative views it wasn\u2019t Lauren Boebert.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t support her,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n

While she says she needs to do more research on this upcoming election, Cooper feels that her values are more in line with Hurd\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like if we could balance what\u2019s going on with the decisions of the governor, with maybe some more conservative values and views, we would maybe have a little bit more harmony,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She feels that Hurd embodies the family values and ethics of small town people, and would benefit the economy of Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just would prefer to maybe have more of a balance in the scales, as far as being able to have opinions from both sides and not so heavy on the left,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Before the 2022 election, Cooper told The Sun<\/a> that she felt Frisch had a better grasp on Coloradans\u2019 needs but that his views were too liberal for her. At the time, she planned to write in a candidate because of her dislike for Boebert, who she said was \u201cmore focused on attention than getting stuff done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joshua Burt, 46, Rangely<\/div>\n

Burt, who voted for Boebert in 2020 and 2022 despite concerns about her being too extreme, plans to vote for Hurd this year.<\/p>\n

Burt said his top issues are immigration, housing and the economy. Frisch, from Burt\u2019s perspective, is not best suited to tackle those issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t vote for a Democrat ever again after this, after what they\u2019ve done to the border,\u201d he said. \u201cI live in the middle of (expletive) nowhere, and we\u2019ve got illegal problems all the way up here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burt, who has previously worked in construction and oil and gas, said he\u2019s also very concerned by the regulations placed on housing, and feels that Democrats can\u2019t be trusted to fix a housing crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur policies in this country, especially here in this district, because we\u2019re such a heavy oil district, they\u2019ve screwed us,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve screwed the state of Colorado. We\u2019ve lost millions of oilfield jobs, and they\u2019re never coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Hirano, 61, Craig<\/div>\n

Hirano, a copier technician from Craig who believes he backed Boebert in 2020 and 2022 despite calling her \u201cking of crazy,\u201d says he will probably vote for Hurd this election.<\/p>\n

He said he tends to gravitate towards conservative candidates, but is still registered as an unaffiliated voter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m conservative, so I kind of back conservative-thinking people,\u201d Hirano said.<\/p>\n

Before the 2022 election, Hirano told The Sun that he was concerned about partisanship, as well as the economy. He also said he viewed abortion restriction as a limit on freedom.<\/p>\n

Repinski and Tucker are journalism students at Fort Lewis College in Durango. Colorado Sun editor\/staff writer Jesse Paul oversaw their work.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unaffiliated voters make up the largest share of the electorate in the 3rd District<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[981,233,266,28,367],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-3rd-congressional-district","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-u-s-rep-lauren-boebert"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25082"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}