CO-4 Update: Weld Finishes, and of 7,500 Ballots Counted Today, 2,500 Voters There Left the Congressional Race Blank

Projection: Laubacher Win by about 2,700, range 2,000 to 3,400. Weld’s clerk says the county is done.

The Count Continues

As of AP’s latest update Thursday morning:

• Eileen Laubacher (D): 176,162 (48.7%)

• Rep. Lauren Boebert (R): 173,649 (48.0%)

• Douglas Mangeris (L): 11,669 (3.2%)

• Total counted: 361,480.

• Laubacher leads by 2,513 votes, 0.7 points.

• AP estimates 92 percent of the vote is in.

The Secretary of State’s feed has not refreshed since 5:38 PM MT Wednesday, when it showed Laubacher ahead by 3,483 on 357,670 votes. The state’s next update is due by 4 PM MT today.

Weld is done, and 2,500 Ballots Skipped the Congressional Race in Latest Count

I spoke with Weld County Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes Thursday. Her office has finished counting CD-4 votes, apart from cure ballots and ballots forwarded in from other counties. Here is the number that matters.

Of the roughly 7,500 ballots her office said were still coming in this district, about 2,500 of them left the congressional race blank.

An undervote is a ballot that was cast and counted but skipped one or more race. The voter turned it in, picked a governor or a senator, and left the congressional line empty. Those ballots count toward turnout. They just produce no vote in CD-4.

A typical congressional undervote runs 2 to 5 percent. Thirty-three percent is voter disgust and roughly ten times typical undervotes.

My read: people in Weld County who would not vote for Boebert and would not vote for a Democrat either found a third option, which was to vote for everything else on the ballot and stop. Two years of national coverage, a theater video, a move across the state, and a primary fight will do that to a politician’s own voters. It is the quietest way to tell an incumbent you are finished with her.

That is my read, and readers should weigh the alternatives. Late-arriving drop-off ballots skew toward voters who fill in less of the ballot. Weld spans three congressional districts, and the county already had a ballot-style problem this cycle with a Front Range Passenger Rail question that reached voters who should not have received it. Any of that could account for part of the gap.

What is not in dispute is the effect. The 7,500 CD-4 votes Boebert’s side was waiting on turned into roughly 5,000, and the batch that did arrive ran 57 to 36 rather than the 65 to 30 of Wednesday afternoon.

What Moved Overnight

Three counties posted after the state’s Wednesday evening snapshot. All three lean Boebert.

• Weld added about 3,342 CD-4 votes in AP’s count, roughly 57 percent Boebert, 36 percent Laubacher, 6 percent Mangeris. Net Boebert, about 700.

• Adams added 232 votes, about 76 to 21. Net Boebert, roughly 130.

• El Paso added 236 votes, about 76 to 18. Net Boebert, roughly 135.

No new numbers from Douglas, Larimer, Arapahoe, Elbert or the 14 plains counties since Wednesday afternoon. The first three are counties Laubacher is winning.

One caveat on Weld. If the county reported about 5,000 CD-4 votes in its final batch and AP has absorbed about 3,342 of them, roughly 1,700 may still appear in the state’s posting this afternoon. At Weld’s late split that would cost Laubacher about 350 votes. The 4 PM MT update settles it.

Where the Remaining Ballots Are Located

About 26,500 ballots remain, and roughly 90 percent of them sit in three counties Laubacher is carrying:

Douglas is the biggest pile, about 10,300. Its late batches have run close to even, 47 percent Boebert to 48 percent Laubacher, so the county that decides the district by size barely moves the margin: Laubacher +130.

Larimer has about 9,000 left and a 45 to 50 split, worth +530.

Arapahoe has the smallest of the three at 4,400, but the widest split, 35 to 60, which makes it her most valuable county per ballot at +1,150.

What is left on Boebert’s side is redder but much thinner now that Weld has stopped:

• The 14 plains counties have about 1,500 between them at 67 to 27, worth +590.

• El Paso (550 ballots at 76 to 18)

• Adams (530 at 76 to 21)

• Elbert (170 at 70 to 25) add another +690 combined.

Add it up and Laubacher nets about 370 votes out of everything left. Her three counties hold about 23,700 of the 26,500. Boebert’s six hold about 2,750.

What Boebert Needs to Win

Trailing by 2,513 with about 26,500 ballots left, Boebert needs a 9.5-point margin on everything remaining, roughly 55 percent of the two-candidate vote.

Wednesday afternoon’s full batch of 14,389 votes ran Boebert +9.8, but that batch leaned on Elbert and Weld, both now finished. Without Elbert it ran +3.2.

Wednesday night’s 3,810 votes ran +25.5, and the three counties that produced them have little or nothing left. The remaining ballots, weighted by county and each county’s latest split, run slightly toward Laubacher.

Projected Final Tally

Laubacher: about 188,800

Boebert: about 186,100

Mangeris: about 12,800

Total about 387,700.

Projected margin:

Laubacher by about 2,700, range 2,000 to 3,400.

The low end assumes the roughly 1,700 outstanding Weld votes land at Weld’s late split and Douglas, Larimer and Arapahoe run a couple of points redder than their late batches. The high end assumes AP already has all of Weld and Wednesday’s splits hold.

Cured ballots and military and overseas 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: about 880 votes today, about 945 at the projected final.

• Laubacher by 2,000 or more: 54 percent

• Laubacher by 1,000 to 2,000: 29 percent

• Laubacher by under 1,000: 10 percent

• Boebert wins: 7 percent, most of it inside the recount line

• Laubacher wins in about 92 percent of outcomes. A recount, either way, about 15 percent.

What We’re Watching For You Today

1. Secretary of State posting by 4 PM MT, and whether Weld’s final number is larger than AP currently shows.

2. Larimer’s fifth posting, promised by 5 PM MT. About 9,000 ballots left there.

3. Douglas, about 10,300 left. Its late batches have run near even.

4. Arapahoe, about 4,400 left at roughly 60 to 35 Laubacher.

5. Whether the undervote that hollowed out Weld’s final batch shows up in other counties.

6. Counties send cure notices today. Cure, provisional and military deadline is 11:59 PM Nov 12. Counties finish tabulating Nov 13.

A word about the people who count the ballots

Carly Koppes and her team are tired. They have been at this since before the polls closed Tuesday and they ran a clean, fast, transparent count in a county where that work gets second-guessed from every direction.

This is her last election as Weld County Clerk and Recorder. She is looking forward to the next chapter: more time with her one-year-old and three-year-old, and more time with the horses on her ranch.

Hats off to every election worker in Weld County. They did the job right.

Revision

Wednesday I projected Laubacher by 5,770, then 5,700. Both assumed late ballots would match each county’s overall numbers. They ran redder: Douglas by 11 points, Larimer by 6, Weld by 19. That took me to 2,650 Thursday morning. Weld finishing its count, with 2,500 of its last ballots skipping the race entirely, puts it at 2,700. The leader has not changed; the cushion has and I have adjusted our projections.

DBW

Methodology: Vote totals from AP as of Thursday morning, Nov 5, and the Colorado Secretary of State feed, version 385686, posted 5:38 PM MT Nov 4. Weld’s status and undervote figure from an interview with Weld County Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes, Nov 5. Weld’s overnight split derived from AP’s county total minus the state’s Wednesday figures. Remaining ballots from AP’s county percentages, with Weld set to zero. Each county’s most recent late batch applied to its remaining ballots; Mangeris held at each county’s late share. Recount threshold per Colorado law. Scenario probabilities are the author’s judgment. All figures unofficial.

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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.

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