November 12, 2024 12:48 PM UTC

Jeff "Bread Sandwich" Hurd is Off to a Weird Start

• 9 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Republican Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd defeated Democrat Adam Frisch last week by a 4-point margin, keeping the third congressional district in Republican hands in a post-Boebert era.

Hurd and his campaign advisers judged (correctly) that he could just ride the ‘R’ next to his name in a district that generally favors Republican candidates not named Lauren Boebert by an average of 9 points. Boebert, of course, bounced across the state last December because she was headed for certain defeat in CO-03 after alienating pretty much everyone in her home district and nearly losing to Frisch in 2022. As we wrote in December 2023, the voter makeup of CO-03 indicated that a decent Republican candidate should be able to keep this seat in the red column; Hurd wasn’t so much “decent” as he was comically uninteresting, but the effect was the same.

Hurd earned the “Bread Sandwich” nickname from Colorado Pols and the Get More Smarter Podcast by being a bland candidate running an intentionally-vague campaign (Hurd has since embraced that nickname). He dodged questions on key issues such as abortion rights, claiming — absurdly — that he couldn’t recall how he voted on an abortion ban on the Colorado ballot in 2020. Hurd made limited campaign appearances and media interviews, and his campaign ran ads that all but screamed out “Generic Republican Candidate.”

Following his victory over Frisch, Hurd posted a video to his social media accounts thanking voters and pledging to “never forget” where he came from. It was another on-brand generic message, but this one hit a little differently given what took place at the Hurd watch party on Election Night.

As Charles Ashby reported for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Hurd’s Nov. 5th gathering was quite odd:

In all my nearly 50 years in journalism, about half of which was in covering politics in Colorado, I’ve never heard of what happened during U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd’s election night watch party occurring anywhere else.

While it’s not uncommon to corral the media at political events, or even bar them from entry, what Hurd’s campaign did to the print, radio and television press at The Warehouse 25Sixty-five Kitchen & Bar on Tuesday night was unprecedented…

…the Hurd campaign sequestered the media in a curtained area away from everyone, but then required any of them to be escorted by a Hurd staffer if they attempted to go anywhere in the establishment, including to the bathroom. [Pols emphasis]

Nancy Lofholm, long-time journalist who used to work for this newspaper and was covering the event for the Colorado Sun said she, too, had never experienced anything like it.

“My one-word summation of that gathering would be ‘weird,’” Lofholm told me.

Hurd’s campaign not only sequestered reporters in a “makeshift room” at the watch party — it went so far as to demand that reporters treat anything they happened to hear through the curtains as “off the record” unless they gained specific permission from the campaign. Ashby wrote that the Hurd campaign has since ignored repeated requests for comment about its Election Night journalist corral.

As Ashby continues:

“Hurd was pleasant, going so far as emphasizing the important role journalists play in holding elected officials accountable,” Sentinel reporter Jace DiCola said, quoting Hurd saying: “As a general matter, you’re going to get somebody that tries to be serious, hard-working, well-prepared and accessible, also to the media.”

“You guys are part of what helps hold us accountable,” Hurd added. “You’re a way that citizens and my bosses, the people of your congressional district, can see whether or not I’m doing an effective job. So, that’s what you’ll get from me.”

Hurd’s words sharply contrast his actions and how the press was treated throughout the evening. [Pols emphasis]

For a candidate who entered the race in CO-03 before Boebert ran away, Hurd is already displaying some very Boebert-esque qualities in pretending to be “transparent” while simultaneously hiding from the media. As Ashby concludes:

Boebert, like President-elect Donald Trump isn’t a fan of the media, everyone knows that. But I never thought that Hurd was, too. [Pols emphasis]

Hurd will find it difficult to keep this transparency charade going as a Member of Congress. Here’s hoping that local media push back and refuse to cover Hurd’s press releases and events until he does remember where he came from.