The Count Continues
As of AP’s latest update Friday midday:
Eileen Laubacher (D): 184,624 (48.8%)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R): 181,555 (47.9%)
Douglas Mangeris (L): 12,506 (3.3%)
Total counted: 378,685. Laubacher leads by 3,069 votes, 0.8 points. AP estimates 95 percent of the vote is in.
The Secretary of State finally refreshed Thursday night after missing its own 4 PM MT deadline. The state shows Laubacher ahead by 3,024 on 377,647 votes, slightly behind AP’s count.
The overnight batch broke her way
Since Thursday morning, 17,205 new votes have been counted. They split 49.2 percent Laubacher, 46.0 percent Boebert, 4.9 percent Mangeris, a Laubacher margin of 3.2 points. Her lead grew by 556 votes, from 2,513 to 3,069.
That is the first batch since election night that moved the margin in her direction, and it happened for the reason I laid out Thursday: the counties with ballots left are the counties she is winning.
Six counties reported. By my arithmetic from AP’s county margins:
Larimer added 7,409 votes at roughly 51 Laubacher to 44 Boebert, net Laubacher about 500.
Douglas added 6,382 at roughly 52 to 43, net Laubacher about 600. That is noticeably bluer than Douglas’s Wednesday batch, which ran near even.
Arapahoe added 1,194 at roughly 58 to 38, net Laubacher about 240.
Adams added 1,020 at roughly 61 Boebert to 36 Laubacher, net Boebert about 260.
Weld added 834 at roughly 62 to 32, net Boebert about 257.
El Paso added 366 at roughly 82 to 12, net Boebert about 257.
The 14 plains counties and Elbert added nothing. Several show refreshed timestamps with identical vote totals, which means they are reporting and have nothing new to report.
Weld’s numbers check out
Clerk Carly Koppes told me Thursday that Weld was done except for cure ballots and ballots forwarded from other counties. The county has since added 834 votes, which is exactly what that description predicts.
Weld has now added 4,176 CD-4 votes since Wednesday evening. The clerk’s figures, 7,500 ballots with about 2,500 leaving the congressional race blank, implied roughly 5,000 CD-4 votes. Thursday I flagged a gap of about 1,700 between her numbers and what the count showed. Most of that gap has now closed.
Boebert’s lawyer raises “unusual voting patterns”
Late Thursday, Scott Gessler, an attorney for the Boebert campaign and a former Republican Colorado secretary of state, issued a statement:
“We are investigating some very unusual voting patterns and expect this election to head to a recount, one way or another.”
The statement named no county, cited no data, and described no specific irregularity. Gessler did not respond when Colorado Politics asked him to specify which patterns he meant. No county clerk, the Secretary of State’s office, or the Laubacher campaign had responded as of Friday morning.
Separately, a Boebert campaign fundraising email misstated Colorado’s recount threshold. A campaign spokesman did not respond to a question about it. The actual threshold Friday morning was 923 votes. The current margin is more than three times that.
Where the remaining ballots are
AP’s county percentages imply about 20,000 ballots left. I think the real figure is closer to 16,000, and here is why.
El Paso County has finished counting and will not post again until after the eight-day cure period. Weld is done except for cures. The 14 plains counties have posted nothing since election night, and Elbert nothing since Wednesday afternoon. AP’s model still assigns those counties about 5,500 ballots between them. Some of that is cure and military ballots due by Nov 12. Much of it is model estimate rather than paper.
What is unquestionably real sits in three counties:
Douglas, about 8,400 left at a 52 to 43 late split, worth about 750 to Laubacher.
Arapahoe, about 3,600 left at 58 to 38, worth about 720.
Larimer, about 2,400 left at 51 to 44, worth about 170.
Everything else combined, roughly 1,600 ballots running about 62 Boebert to 33, worth about 465 to her.
Net of all of it: Laubacher gains roughly 1,200 more votes.
One caution the other way. AP told the Denver Gazette the race was over 97 percent counted at 9 AM Friday. Three hours later its own page said 95 percent. AP revised its expected turnout upward, meaning it now believes more ballots exist than it did that morning. That is the opposite of the lesson Weld taught this week.
What Boebert needs
Trailing by 3,069 with roughly 16,000 ballots left, Boebert needs about 60 percent of the two-candidate remainder, a margin of roughly 20 points. On AP’s larger estimate of 20,000 remaining, she needs about 58 percent, a 16-point margin.
Her best single batch all week was Weld at 62 percent, and Weld has finished counting. Roughly 90 percent of what remains is in Douglas, Arapahoe and Larimer, where her overnight batches ran 43, 38 and 44 percent.
Projected final tally
Laubacher: about 190,100
Boebert: about 186,200
Mangeris: about 13,200
Total about 389,500.
Projected margin: Laubacher by about 3,900, range 2,800 to 4,600.
The low end assumes AP’s full 20,000 is real and the plains counties deliver one more red batch. The high end assumes those counties are finished and the remaining ballots run as Thursday night’s did. Cure, provisional and military ballots through Nov 12 are not in these numbers.
The recount line
Colorado orders an automatic recount when the margin is within 0.5 percent of the leader’s total. That is about 923 votes today and about 955 at the projected final. The current margin is 3,069.
Laubacher by 3,000 or more: 62 percent
Laubacher by 1,000 to 3,000: 31 percent
Laubacher by under 1,000: 4 percent
Boebert wins: 3 percent
Laubacher wins in about 97 percent of outcomes. An automatic recount, about 4 percent. A candidate may also request and pay for a recount at any margin, which is the scenario Gessler’s statement points toward.
What We’re Watching For You Today:
Douglas County, about 8,400 ballots left and posting daily. This is the race.
Arapahoe at 80 percent counted, the lowest in the district and her strongest county per ballot.
Larimer, about 2,400 left after Thursday’s 7,409.
Whether Gessler’s office identifies any county, precinct or batch behind the “unusual voting patterns” claim.
Whether AP calls the race. CD-4 is the last uncalled congressional contest in Colorado.
Cure, provisional and military deadline is 11:59 PM Nov 12. Counties finish tabulating Nov 13.
Revision
Thursday I projected Laubacher by 2,700. The overnight batches ran bluer than I assumed in Douglas and Larimer, and her lead grew by 556 instead of drifting down. The projection moves to 3,900. I have now revised this number four times in three days, every time because the late ballots refused to behave like the ballots that came before them.
DBW
Methodology: Vote totals from AP as of Friday midday, Nov 6, and the Colorado Secretary of State feed, version 385816. County batch splits are derived by subtracting Thursday’s AP county totals and margins from Friday’s; AP publishes county margins rounded to one decimal, so each derived split carries an error of up to a few points. Remaining ballots from AP’s county percentages, adjusted downward for counties that have publicly finished counting. Recount threshold per Colorado law. Scenario probabilities are the author’s judgment. The Gessler statement is quoted as reported by Colorado Politics and the Denver Gazette. All figures unofficial.
Sources:
About the Author
David B. Wheeler is the president and co-founder of American Muckrakers, the Western North Carolina accountability organization best known for helping end Madison Cawthorn’s congressional career in 2022, the rare instance in modern politics of a sitting incumbent losing his own primary because somebody bothered to do the homework. Since then, American Muckrakers has turned its attention to Lauren Boebert, Ken Paxton, and a growing roster of politicians who confuse public office with a personal ATM. He publishes accountability journalism at Muckrakers.Today.
Wheeler co-hosts the MUCK YOU! podcast with Col. Moe Davis, the retired Air Force colonel and former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. He is the author of Color the Crooks, Case File #001: Lauren Boebert, the coloring book James Carville endorsed with the words “She earned every damn page. Buy it.” *He is also the founder of VoteROI.com, a political data company built on 86.9 million FEC records that helps donors figure out where their money actually goes, which, as this essay makes clear, is a question more people should be asking.
Before all that, Wheeler spent three decades in politics, elections, and event production in more than 50 countries on all seven continents. Along the way he lowered the Mississippi River, produced the first professional sports event ever held in Moscow, and produced the first marathon ever run on Antarctica. His political education started early: Page for the Iowa House of Representatives, intern in the United States Senate, and National Committeeman for Iowa on the Young Democrats of America national committee. David was the lead advance guy for then Senator Obama in Iowa City, Iowa, in October of 2006, and then again during his presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, in February 2007. And, he has some good stories from both experiences.
An Iowa native and proud Hawkeye, Wheeler is a father of three and lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, in the district Chuck Edwards is currently failing. He believes sunlight is the best disinfectant, filings don’t lie, and the loudest guy in the room is usually the one with the most to hide.
And, Beetlejuice Boebert claimed she was going to sue him. She never did, so David sued her in Federal Court in Denver and partially won.
Paid for by American Muckrakers PAC II (americanmuckrakers.com). Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Donations made to American Muckrakers, Inc. are not deductible for federal or state tax purposes.
This publication is First Amendment protected speech and commentary on matters of public concern. All individuals referenced are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. No portion of this publication may be used for commercial purposes without the written consent of American Muckrakers PAC, Inc. and David B. Wheeler.