Dwayne Romero tightens race against Jeff Hurd in new poll

Grand Junction —“Isn’t an independent poll — it’s a campaign fundraising memo designed to generate headlines and raise money.”

That’s how Nick Bayer, a spokesperson for Republican incumbent Jeff Hurd, summarized a new survey that has locals on the Western Slope leaning in. The poll, commissioned by Democratic challenger Dwayne Romero’s campaign and conducted by Keating Research, shows the race for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District tighter than anyone expected. Hurd leads Romero by just one percentage point among likely voters: 46 percent to 45 percent.

It’s a toss-up. And in a district that has favored Republicans since 2011, a one-point gap is less a victory lap and more a warning shot.

The survey, conducted July 21–23, polled 500 likely voters across the region’s sprawling geography. It stretches from the northwestern corner of the state, down through the Grand Junction area and the Roaring Fork Valley where Romero lives, all the way east to Pueblo. The margin of error sits at 4.4 percentage points. That means the difference between Hurd and Romero is statistically negligible. Nine percent of those surveyed were undecided. One percent backed another candidate.

Romero, an Army veteran from the Aspen area, didn’t waste time framing the numbers as a statistical anomaly. He called it a mandate for change.

“Voters in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District... appear evenly divided,” Romero said in a statement, though he pushed past the tie to focus on the message he wants to carry into November. “I’m running because this district deserves a fighter who works for working Coloradans, not for special interests.”

He’s pitching a platform centered on lowering costs, protecting Social Security, and holding “corrupt politicians accountable.” He’s arguing that the current Republican hold on the seat has become a rubber stamp for Washington’s chaos.

Hurd’s camp isn’t buying the narrative that this poll proves momentum. Bayer’s text message response was sharp, dismissing the Keating Research data as a tool for raising cash rather than a rigorous academic exercise.

“If Dwayne Romero thinks selective polling is a substitute for a record or a vision for Colorado’s 3rd District, he’s mistaken,” Bayer wrote. “Congressman Hurd will continue talking directly to voters about the results he’s delivering, and we’ll see what they have to say in November.”

The skepticism is warranted. The 3rd District is a Republican stronghold that hasn’t had a Democratic representative since 2011. But the gap has been closing. In 2022, former Aspen City Councilmember Adam Frisch came within 546 votes of unseating Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert. A Keating poll from that October showed Frisch trailing by just two points. Boebert left the seat in 2024 to run elsewhere, and Hurd won by under 20,000 votes — five percentage points.

Crucially, Hurd underperformed Donald Trump in that same cycle. Trump won the area by 10 points. If the partisan tides shift even slightly, or if turnout among unaffiliated voters holds steady, the seat is winnable.

The poll highlights Romero’s strategy: consolidate Democrats and unaffiliated voters. It’s a gamble on a region that has historically voted red but is now voting closer to purple. The 500 likely voters surveyed don’t just represent a snapshot; they represent a community that is waking up to the idea that its long-standing Republican lock might finally be loosening.

Stand there long enough on the Grand Junction strip, or walk the streets of Aspen, and you hear the same question: who is actually winning? The polls say it’s a coin flip. The voters, still undecided, are the ones holding the coin.