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Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd has fended off Democratic challenger Dwayne Romero and kept Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, one of the state’s most competitive, in the GOP’s hands.
The Associated Press called the race at 9:24 a.m. Friday, when Hurd had 49.29% of the votes tallied and Romero, a former Aspen City Council member, had 47.44%. Cory Robertson, the Libertarian Party candidate, and Clifton Brown, who is unaffiliated, had 1.67% and 1.6%, respectively.
Hurd was on track Friday to be the lone Republican in Colorado’s congressional delegation and the top elected GOP official in Colorado. The three other Republican members of Congress from Colorado had either been defeated or were headed for defeat.
“I’m grateful to the people of Colorado’s 3rd District for placing their trust in me again,” Hurd said in a written statement Friday while touring flood damage in southwestern Colorado. “I also want to thank Dwayne Romero for a hard-fought campaign, his service to our country and his willingness to step forward to serve.
He added: “Whether you voted for me or not, I will continue working hard for every corner of this district. There is a lot of work ahead, and I’m ready to get back to it.”
Hurd’s victory secures him a second term serving the 3rd District, which covers most of Colorado west of the Continental Divide and also curls around in the south to encompass Pueblo and other chunks of southern Colorado.
Hurd is an attorney and former small business owner who lives in Grand Junction with his wife and five children. He was first elected to office in 2024 after the 3rd District’s previous representative, Republican Lauren Boebert, switched districts.
The 3rd District has been represented by a Republican since 2011, and it leans conservative — President Donald Trump won it by 10 percentage points in 2024. But it has also long been a pickup target for Democrats, who see opportunity in the district’s independent streak.
Gov. Jared Polis, for instance, won the district by 3 percentage points during his reelection campaign in 2022.
Hurd won the district by 5 percentage points in 2024, and Boebert faced an even tougher challenge in her final election in the 3rd, when her race against former Aspen City Council member Adam Frisch in 2022 was decided by fewer than 600 votes.
Underscoring the district’s competitiveness, Hurd’s campaign this year touted his disagreements with Trump.
“Hopefully you’ve seen me as somebody that’s been a voice of independence,” he told voters at one campaign stop.
Romero, an Army combat veteran and small business owner, focused on the votes where Hurd supported Trump’s agenda, such as H.R. 1, the massive federal tax and budget bill also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“The people of CD3 are ready for someone who will fight to lower costs, protect Social Security, and hold corrupt politicians accountable — not rubber-stamp Washington’s chaos,” Romero said.
But, ultimately, the 3rd District’s voters opted to stick with Hurd.
In a written statement Friday, Romero said he had spoken with, and congratulated, Hurd.
“We came up short,” Romero said. “But I am proud of this team, proud of the race we ran, and proud of the values we stood for.”
On Election Day, Pagosa Springs resident Jeff Wallace said he voted for Hurd because, “I appreciated his integrity.”
“I thought he was one of the few moderate Republicans who was willing to listen to both sides and risk Trump being mad at him,” said Wallace, who is unaffiliated.
Because of its enormous size, the 3rd District is logistically complicated and expensive to run in — it spans multiple distinct communities and media markets. But, while internal polls showed a tight race, a number of national Democratic campaign groups sat on the sidelines, choosing instead to direct their spending to other competitive races.
Democrats made a late push, dumping more than $2 million into the race on TV ads to benefit Romero. But that came after Republican groups had already dropped more than $3 million in the district and about a quarter of the state’s electorate had already cast a ballot.
Colorado Sun staff writer Shannon Mullane contributed to this report.