By BRIAN PORTER | The Rocky Mountain Voice
District 63 State Rep. Richard Holtorf, R-Akron, will appear second on the Republican Party’s 4th Congressional District primary ballot, immediately following 3rd District U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, he announced Friday.
He won a lottery drawing for the position among qualified candidates on the congressional ballot to replace ex-Congressman Ken Buck, following top-line candidate Lauren Boebert.
Holtorf earned 15.4% of the delegate vote at the 4th District Assembly in early April and his certification of 1,866 signatures allowed him to advance onto the ballot through the hybrid method. Boebert qualified for the top line on the ballot by taking 40% of the delegate vote at assembly, the highest total among the four attending candidates, and also qualified through a signature drive.
He has been critical of the funds some other candidates expended in the 4th District to gather signatures for ballot petitions.
“While other CD4 candidates paid as much as $40,000-$88,000 to professional political companies, I spent zero dollars to accomplish the same task,” said Holtorf in a statement, adding the signatures came from all 21 counties in the district. “That not only shows how widespread the ‘grassroots’ support for our campaign is, but it also shows who the real fiscal conservative is [in the 4th District]. We need real fiscal conservatives in Washington, D.C., not politicians who only know how to overspend.”
Peter Yu, a businessman who will also appear on the ballot, has indicated he also collected signatures the old-fashioned way.
Holtorf’s signature approval rate of 71.4% was among the highest, he points out, with many candidates in this and other races having a rate of 60% or less.
“I would like to thank everyone who gathered signatures, voted for me at the Assembly, and [who] has signed up to help our campaign in other ways,” Holtorf said in a statement. “Our campaign is different. We are a true grassroots campaign. I spend a lot of time talking and listening to people. Listening to voters is what a representative is supposed to do. That is what I do in the state capitol now, as the House Minority Whip, and it is what I will do as a congressman in Washington, D.C.”