Adam Frisch is the former Aspen City Council Member who nearly unseated Lauren Bobert in 2022. In 2024, he lost to a more boring Republican by 5 points. Here, Frish reflects to Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post on what he learned from all the 77,000 miles he drove across 27 counties talking to voters. A quote focusing on Frisch's reflections follows:
[To Frisch], the story of this election can be told in the people he met. Farmers and ranchers. Small towns in southern Colorado with predominantly Latino populations — some newly arrived and some who have been there for nine generations.The story also includes some data on the history of Democratic losses in rural counties. Bottom line: it's been worsening over the decades.
One person who stands out in his memory, he told me, was an electrician in northwestern Colorado, the hub of the state’s natural gas industry. The man, who was in his mid-60s, was working at a hotel, making about $18 an hour — a drastic cut from the $62 an hour he had been earning in the gas fields, where employment has been declining in part because of government-driven efforts to transition to clean energy.
But it was not just the financial hit that bothered him, Frisch said. He also resented what he felt was liberal animosity toward the very nature of his work in the fossil fuel industry.
Of voters like him, “I get asked all the time … ‘Why did they keep on voting against their interests?’ And what I think people mean is ‘Why do non-college-educated, working-class people, why did they vote for people that don’t have their economic back?’” Frisch said. “And I’m like, ‘As important as pocketbook issues are, pride and dignity will trump pocketbook issues all day long.’”
