Today is Monday, November 14, 2022. Everyone is still waiting to see what the outcome for the governor’s race in Arizona will be: will Trump-backed election denier Kari Lake defeat Democratic challenger Katie Hobbs? The numbers are still not in. Now the count is in from Maricopa County putting Hobbs ahead of Lake. It’s a tense situation here in Arizona. I’ll let you know who eventually wins the governorship in Arizona.

To illustrate how Republicans are being hammered by Democrats is the particular case of one Colorado House Congresswoman who is in the fight of her life to retain her seat. The U.S. Representative is kooky Lauren Boebert who hasn’t met a firearm she hasn’t brandished in the U.S. Capitol. So far, her Democratic opponent Adam Frisch has taken a narrow lead over the deranged Congresswoman. This was last Wednesday, but unfortunately, the Representative of only republican far-right interests and not any of her constituents had eked out a 1,122-vote lead, accounting for just 50.17 percent of the vote. As of today, the race is still too close to call. This close race is just a signal of how voters have begun to reject the extremists in the repugnican party. Even the red-leaning Boebert was expected to easily win another two years to Congress. But not anymore!

This situation is covered in an online article in Mother Jones by Abigail Weinberg entitled “Why Lauren Boebert Might Lose.” Most analysts assumed that Rep. Boebert would cruise to victory in her solidly red district, which became even more Republican after redistricting. In 2020, Boebert defeated her Democratic opponent by six percentage points. Always the cockeyed optimist, this conspiracy-spewing Representative declared too hastily in June after winning her primary, “It looks like two more years of Lauren Boebert in Congress.”

A political scientist at the University of Denver, Seth Masket, informed the writer of this article via email, “A Republican incumbent in a red district in a lean-Republican year should not be struggling like this, especially after doing reasonably well in 2020.” Masket said that Boebert needed the support of not only of her enthusiastic supporters, but of right-leaning unaffiliated voters, too. The political scientist indicated that Boebert’s bombastic behavior has clearly irked many of her voters.

The writer drove from her home in Denver down to Pueblo, Colorado, the largest city in Boebert’s huge, diverse district. Pueblo is a union town and one of the largest steel-producing cities in the United States and has a 50 percent Hispanic population. “In the district’s large rural areas, many people find work as ranchers or in the oil and gas industry.” The district also includes small, staunchly liberal enclaves, like the wealthy ski town of Aspen.

At the Shamrock Bar in Pueblo, Weinberg met a 51-year-old unaffiliated voter who identified himself as “Ed.” Even though Ed was concerned about inflation and was disappointed about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, he actually voted against Boebert this year, which is quite significant, given that he typically leans conservative. Ed sounded off on the inflammatory Congresswoman, “I don’t think she did shit.” He continued, “She didn’t back one bill, she just talked a lot.” Even this staunch conservative accurately described the worthlessness of this one-term Congresswoman (we hope!).

For those who have forgotten some of Boebert’s political stunts over the last two years, here are some of them: vowing to bring a pistol to the Capitol – a promise that never materialized – ; heckling President Joe Biden at his State of the Union address; and suggesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was a terrorist. She has lied with the best of them like her Golden Idol who lies with every breath; she has touted legislative achievements like federal funding for rural community health centers, while actually voting against those very measures in Congress.

What might put her opponent over the margin of victory is that Frisch is considered generally conservative. Ed, the unaffiliated voter that Weinberg interviewed at the Shamrock Bar, said that it helped that Frisch was fairly conservative. “If he was super far left, I wouldn’t have voted for him.”

An ad on his website says it all: Frisch identifies himself as a conservative businessman, a 2nd Amendment supporter, and supports less regulation. However, one area in which he’s not as conservative leaning is that he’s prochoice. You have to scroll past categories on Inflation, Jobs, Water, Energy, Veterans, Fiscal Responsibility, and Education on his webpage before seeing that he’s prochoice.

Thus there is still no declared winner in Boebert’s congressional district. Time will tell if this big-mouth do-nothing is displaced by a more moderate, sane candidate, which seems to be the case mostly now as winners of midterm elections prevail as Democrats, not conspiracy-leaning, election denier Republicans. You can say that repugnicans have been getting a shellacking in this election cycle.

Oh, by the way, Kari Lake lost to Katie Hobbs in Arizona. Yippee, hooray!

I’m getting stiff here sitting too long at the computer, so I need to sign off.

Stay safe and be well.