Republican Greg Lopez won a special election to serve out the remainder of Rep. Ken Buck’s (R-CO) term in the House.
The Associated Press called the race for Lopez, a former Parker, Colorado, mayor, 32 minutes after polls closed on Tuesday, defeating three other candidates to replace Buck, who left Congress early on March 22. The former mayor won 57.3% of the vote, with 79% of votes counted in Colorado’s 4th District.
The special election only determines who will serve in Buck’s seat until January. A separate primary held on Tuesday will help decide who represents the seat for a full two years in the next Congress.
Lopez opted not to compete in the primary and will step down when Buck’s full-term successor is sworn into Congress at the start of next year.
“I’m not coming up here, you know, saying ‘I want to change the world,’” Lopez told the Washington Examiner in April. “I’m coming up here — I feel like I’ve been called to duty. I’m a veteran. And so I’ve been called to duty, and I’m going to honor that duty to the best of my ability, and then I get to go home.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who currently represents the 3rd district, was the front-runner heading into the race for a full term after switching districts to avoid another hard-fought battle against Adam Frisch, her Democratic opponent in 2022 who came within 546 votes of defeating her.
Boebert is facing several Republican opponents in the GOP primary, including state Reps. Mike Lynch and Richard Holtorf, talk radio host Deborah Flora, former state Senate President Pro Tempore Jerry Sonnenberg, and banking executive Peter Yu.
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Lopez’s win gives House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) an extra vote amid a narrow House GOP majority. The party’s margins improved slightly on Tuesday when Rep. Michael Rulli, the replacement for another congressman who retired, was sworn into the House.
Democrat Trisha Calvarese, Libertarian Hannah Goodman, and Frank Atwood of the Approval Voting Party were Lopez’s opponents in the special election.
Rachel Schilke contributed to this story.
