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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Rachel Sharp

Lauren Boebert breaks 36-hour silence as she trails by 64 votes in Colorado race

AP

Lauren Boebert has finally broken her 36-hour silence as she continues to trail behind Democrat Adam Frisch in the race for the US House seat in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.

The incumbent MAGA Republican congresswoman posted a vague tweet on her Twitter page on Thursday morning, making no mention of the tight race which threatens to oust her from Congress after just one term.

“Good morning! Jesus is Lord,” she simply wrote.

In a follow-up tweet, she posted a meme appearing to mock the pace of counting of votes in Colorado.

Ms Boebert had fallen uncharacteristically quiet on election night when votes started being counted and results poured in, prompting her to realise her race wasn’t turning out quite as she planned.

All throughout Wednesday, the election denier – who is normally a regular fixture on social media – didn’t say a word online.

Ms Boebert last tweeted on Tuesday night when she claimed the “red wave” had started to sweep across the US.

“The red wave has begun!” she wrote as she congratulated fellow Republican Anna Paulina Luna, who was one of the first House races to be called.

“America First is winning!” she added.

Then, for the next 36 hours, not a peep was heard from Ms Boebert, as her race took an unexpected turn and the so-called red wave failed to materialise across America.

Social media users mocked the gun-toting Donald Trump ally for her silence on Wednesday, coming after her confident assertion about a GOP win.

The race for the Senate seat has gone down to the wire with Democratic challenger Mr Frisch now leading by just 64 votes.

By early on Thursday morning, 99 per cent of all votes had been reported, with the two candidates neck and neck with 50 per cent of the vote each.

Mr Frisch still holds a narrow lead, with 156,746 votes to Ms Boebert’s 156,682, though the race remains too close to call.

The tight race came as something of a surprise to both Republicans and Democrats – as well as pollsters – after Ms Boebert had been expected to enjoy a comfortable reelection.

Ms Boebert’s 2022 campaign was one of the most expensive House races across the US, with the far-right incumbent raising over $6.6m in campaign contributions in the run-up to the midterms, according to data from Open Secrets.

None of the mainstream polling groups had even surveyed voters in the race for the House seat, indicating the shock factor that it has now shaped up to be a close race.

Ms Boebert had easily sailed to victory in the Republican primary, earning two in every three votes.

However, she only won the seat in 2020 with 51 per cent of votes.

Since her election to Congress, she has carved out her position as a far-right figure in the GOP, a vocal Trump supporter and a 2020 election denier.

She has repeatedly pushed false claims about the presidential election, infamously heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech and voted against providing healthcare and benefits to sick veterans.

Mr Frisch, a currency trader who served on the Aspen, Colorado city council for eight years, took on Ms Boebert because he opposed her performative brand of GOP politics.

In an earlier interview with The Independent, he said he decided to challenge her after finding some of her bizarre comments “disgusting and anti-ethical to America”.

“I was thinking, you know, if a moderate, pragmatic, pro-business Democrat could get by the Democratic primary, which wouldn’t be easy – and it wasn’t – I thought I could build a coalition,” he said.

The close race in Colorado comes as Republicans have failed to generate the red wave they were anticipating across the US, with Democrats so far flipping a Senate seat from red seat blue in Pennsylvania.

Control of the US Senate now hinges on two tight races in Arizona and Nevada, after the race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker in Georgia headed for a runoff.

Republicans are still favoured to take control of the House, but there are several key House races still up for grabs.

The GOP has turned on Donald Trump to blame the party’s worse-than-expected performance, while President Joe Biden did a victory lap on Wednesday, calling election day a “good day for America”.

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