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Frisch campaign links Arizona GOP ads for Hurd to water grab, Koch brothers
As first reported by the Colorado Pols website, the Republican Party of Arizona is spending campaign cash to send Grand Junction lawyer Jeff Hurd to Congress in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District seat that includes part of Eagle County and most of the state’s Western Slope.
The campaign for the seat currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who has moved out of the district and is seeking reelection in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, pits Hurd against former Aspen City Council member Adam Frisch, a Democrat who lost to Boebert by a mere 546 votes in 2022.
The highly unusual move by the Arizona GOP supporting a Colorado congressional candidate, while the largely dysfunctional Colorado Republican Party has spent nothing so far in support of Hurd, was also reported on by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
Frisch campaign manager Camilo Vilaseca, in an email statement to RealVail.com, wrote that the out-of-state spending on Hurd is clearly all about water:
“It is telling that thirsty, out-of-state, and down-river interests like the Kansas-based Koch brothers, Arizona political parties, and Denver lobbyists working to suck Southern Colorado’s water up to Denver are doing anything they can to elect Jeff Hurd to Congress. It’s because they know he’ll be nothing more than a yes man for party leadership, and will happily sell off Western and Southern Colorado’s water to the highest bidder. We need Adam Frisch in Congress because he’ll defend our water against wealthy out-of-state interests like the ones currently trying to buy Jeff Hurd a seat in Congress.”
Arizona’s agriculture industry is one of the largest consumers of water from the endangered Colorado River, where flows are dramatically diminished by manmade climate change and a persistent decades-long drought in the American Southwest.
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported an “unnamed person in the Arizona party … said it ‘is happy to help our Republican neighbors in Colorado anyway it can.’”
Hurd campaign consultant Nick Bayer responded to RealVail.com with the following email statement: “The AZGOP and Republicans all across the country know the Colorado 03 House race is a majority maker — how goes the district goes the majority. With that, we welcome any good-willed Republicans support.”
David O. Williams
