{"id":38318,"date":"2022-09-17T23:53:34","date_gmt":"2022-09-18T05:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-key-to-winning-cd-3-lies-with-unaffiliated-voters-says-democratic-candidate-adam-frisch\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:43:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:43:47","slug":"the-key-to-winning-cd-3-lies-with-unaffiliated-voters-says-democratic-candidate-adam-frisch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-key-to-winning-cd-3-lies-with-unaffiliated-voters-says-democratic-candidate-adam-frisch\/","title":{"rendered":"The key to winning CD-3 lies with unaffiliated voters, says Democratic candidate Adam Frisch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Incumbent
Incumbent Democrat candidate Rep. Barbara McLachlan (Colorado House District 59), center, and Democratic candidates Adam Frisch (candidate for U.S. 3rd Congressional District) and Kevin Kuns (candidate for Colorado House District 58) met state and local Democrats at the Mancos Community Center on Saturday, where they answered questions about strategies for turning out the vote, reproductive rights, support for teachers and education, water and climate change, among other issues. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Two Democratic candidates fighting for state and national office, and one more grappling to retain hers, were featured at the Colorado Democratic Party\u2019s Democracy Tour Montezuma County on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Candidates Adam Frisch and Kevin Kuns, along with incumbent Barbara McLachlan, met more than 40 Democrats at the Mancos Community Center, where they answered questions about strategies for turning out the vote, reproductive rights, support for teachers and education, water and climate change, and more.<\/p>\n

Frisch, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert\u2019s challenger the 3rd Congressional District, said the November election in the state\u2019s largest district, which encompasses 28 counties, cannot be won on the backs of Democrats alone: \u201cThe district, 25% D, 31% R, 43% unaffiliated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the candidate, who describes himself as a conservative Democrat, said he has spent \u201ca lot of time meeting with a lot of frustrated Republicans\u201d who \u201cwant their party back\u201d and bringing unaffiliated voters into the Democratic coalition is the key to victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiz Cheney got 36% of the vote, Don Coram got 36% of the vote,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 It just shows that there is a path.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said women\u2019s reproductive rights is an issue that hits close to home for him, with his father being an OB\/GYN of 50 years, three sisters \u2013 one of whom is also an OB\/GYN \u2013 and a teenage daughter.<\/p>\n

More federal funding for local school districts, and allowing the districts to decide how to spend the money, is also something Frisch wants to see, he said.<\/p>\n

\"Frisch\"
Frisch<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When asked by an attendee if there\u2019s any individual issue he\u2019s willing to fight for as a congressman, even if it would mean losing his seat, he said women\u2019s health care is his No. 1 issue, but stopped himself and said he\u2019s not willing to dump any issues he\u2019s campaigned on.<\/p>\n

He said water and aridification in the face of climate change is as bipartisan an issue as issues get, and it\u2019s an entryway into getting Republicans to discuss climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to do a much better job as a Democratic Party earning rural America\u2019s trust. We\u2019ve lost that over the past 30 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said voting rights and democracy are key issues for him, too. He said he became a Democrat when he was young because the U.S. Supreme Court is a \u201cdriving force\u201d in American politics and it\u2019s important to ensure that a Democratic Senate is appointing justices.<\/p>\n

Residents posed several questions to each candidate at the Democracy Tour Montezuma County event on Saturday, ranging from inflation to state district shakeups and abortion rights.<\/p>\n

\"McLachlan\"
McLachlan<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

McLachlan, running for re-election in Colorado House District 59, said when inflation enters the conversation, the first thing people tend to do is look for somebody to blame for it. She said it\u2019s not an issue of blame, but an issue of world events.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just gone through a huge pandemic,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had manufacturing shut down for two years and now we\u2019re supposed to be getting things back (to normal) and things are more expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

She likened the economy to a cruise ship \u2013 it turns slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ll get there, but it\u2019s a very slow turnaround,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Kuns, running for election in House District 58, said inflation comes and goes and this round is worse than previous ones because of three major factors: No. 1, two years of the COVID-19 pandemic; No. 2, the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and No. 3, Saudi Arabia is not pumping oil.<\/p>\n

\"Kuns\"
Kuns<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt was the perfect storm, and guess what? That storm fell on Democrats because Democrats are in the White House,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that billion-dollar businesses such as Amazon and ExxonMobil have been reporting record profits.<\/p>\n

Frisch said inflation is a \u201csubset of economic stagnation\u201d that the rural American working class is facing, in addition to a 5% job growth and negative wage growth, the costs of health care and affordable housing, and \u201cthe amount of food we put on people\u2019s tables.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe representative I\u2019m running against is basically 0-for-5 in small businesses,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve not had a perfect record as a small-business owner, but a pretty darn good record in construction and homebuilding.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s done business in 80 countries and spent 10 years working on international interest rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho do you want sitting at the table and representing CD-3 in Congress? Who do you want representing you, your kids, your family, your business and your community?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Economics, education, inflation and beating Boebert subjects of Democratic meeting in Mancos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,663,266,28,83,60,299,265,1509],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-democratic-party","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-montezuma-county","tag-national-elections","tag-politics","tag-state-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38318","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=38318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83993,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38318\/revisions\/83993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38318"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}