Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd survives ‘blue tsunami’ in Colorado, defeats Democrat Dwayne Romero

Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd of Grand Junction defeated Democratic challenger Dwayne Romero to win a second term in the House of Representatives, a lone bright spot for the Colorado GOP in the midst of a “blue tsunami” that saw Democrats triumphant across the state and country.

As of 9:40 a.m. on Friday, Hurd led in the 3rd Congressional District race with 49% of the vote, ahead of Romero’s 47%. The Associated Press called the race at 9:24 a.m. on Friday

With incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert still slightly trailing Democratic challenger Eileen Laubacher Friday in the state’s 4th Congressional District, Hurd could be the only Republican member of Colorado’s eight-member U.S. House delegation to win election in 2026. GOP incumbent Reps. Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans also lost in the 5th and 8th districts, respectively.

The 3rd District is Colorado’s largest congressional district by area, stretching from the greater Pueblo area across the San Luis Valley and much of the Western Slope.

In 2023, Hurd, an attorney, was recruited to run for Congress in a primary challenge against Boebert, who had come within 600 votes of losing the 3rd District to Democratic challenger Adam Frisch a year earlier. Months later, Boebert moved across the state to run in the more heavily Republican 4th District instead. Hurd went on to win the 3rd District GOP primary and defeat Frisch in the 2024 general election.

As the most moderate of Colorado’s four House Republicans, Hurd pitched himself to 3rd District voters as a “voice of independence,” highlighting disagreements with Trump over his denial of disaster aid and a February vote against some of the president’s tariffs. That vote led Trump to briefly pull his endorsement from Hurd and back a primary challenger, before he reversed himself a month later and endorsed Hurd again.

Romero, an Army veteran and small business owner, launched his campaign relatively late in the 2026 election cycle, and won a head-to-head Democratic primary over financial executive Alex Kelloff.

Romero charged Hurd with being a “rubber-stamp vote” in favor of Trump’s agenda, including Republicans’ 2025 tax and spending law, which included steep cuts to Medicaid that are expected to hit particularly hard in rural areas like the Western Slope.

For much of the 2026 campaign, Hurd and his supporters, including several deep-pocketed Republican super PACs, had massively outspent Romero and Democratic campaign groups in the 3rd District race. But Romero benefited from a late infusion of $2.5 million in outside spending on his behalf by the House Majority Project, the main Democratic House super PAC, beginning in the final week of October.