Democratic candidate Adam Frisch announced Friday that he conceded the race for one of Colorado’s congressional seats to incumbent Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, giving the GOP another vote in the U.S. House.
Boebert’s win, which hasn’t been called by NBC yet, is by the narrowest of margins. She leads Frisch by just over 500 votes, or 0.2 percentage points, with 99% of the vote in as of Friday.
Boebert confirmed his concession in a tweet, saying she looked forward to moving on from the election.
Boebert, who heckled President Joe Biden during the State of the Union speech earlier this year, was leading in most of the few public polls going into Election Day.
A darling of former President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, Boebert was one of the 147 congressional Republicans who challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election after the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill. She is a member of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
Boebert trailed Frisch, a former member of the Aspen City Council, in fundraising during the third quarter. Frisch raised more than $1 million and Boebert raised $936,000 over the three months ended Sept. 30, Federal Election Commission filings show. In October alone, Frisch raised more than $886,000 while Boebert brought in more than $373,000, federal campaign finance records show. Frisch’s campaign came into the final weeks of the midterms with $743,000 on hand, records show, to Boebert’s $613,000.
Boebert’s tenure in Congress has been marked with controversy. The FEC pressed Boebert last year to explain the apparent personal use of thousands of dollars in campaign funds.
A letter from the FEC to the treasurer of Boebert’s 2022 reelection campaign inquired about four Venmo payments totaling more than $6,000.
FEC filings show the payments came last year for what’s described on the forms as “personal expense of Lauren Boebert billed to campaign account in error.” The filings then note that the “expense has been reimbursed.”
A spokesman for Boebert told CNBC at the time that the personal expenses were already reimbursed but did not say what the payments were for.