Colorado Springs Republicans Jeff Crank and Doug Lamborn will be on the Aug. 8 primary ballot in the heated 5th Congressional District race.
Both candidates received more than the necessary 30 percent of delegate votes cast Friday at a district assembly.
Results from GOP assemblies for the 2nd and 3rd districts weren’t available Friday evening. On the Democratic side, results were unavailable for the 3rd, 4th and 5th districts.
In the 5th District, a host of candidates want the job held for 20 years by Republican Rep. Joel Hefley, who announced in February that he would retire.
Crank, former vice president of the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce and a former top aide to Hefley, won 45.8 percent of the 613 delegate votes. That means his name will appear first on the ballot.
“It’s the spot that anyone in the race would want, but it doesn’t mean you can’t work hard,” said Crank, who hugged and kissed his two children, Joel and Jessica, when the tally was announced. “What it does is it proves you have an army of folks who will go out and help you. People who go to a caucus or an assembly are the people who will walk precincts for you. That’s the importance of having this – we have the biggest army at this point.”
Lamborn, a state senator from Colorado Springs, received 39.8 percent of the vote, and John Anderson, a former El Paso County sheriff and homeland security expert, received 13.4 percent and said he will collect signatures to get on the ballot.
Lamborn, who has carried the county’s social conservative issues before the legislature for 12 years, said he was pleased with the results.
“I’m very happy about being on the ballot. I was a full-time state senator until about 11 days ago, which means I couldn’t work as much as I wanted to on this process, but I’m just very happy with the strong outpouring of grassroots support,” Lamborn said. “My expectation and hope was to get 30 percent and be on the ballot; anything beyond that would have been icing on the cake. This is my goal and I’m very happy.”
Anderson said he already has 750 of the 1,000 signatures needed to get on the primary ballot.
Patrick Carter, a Colorado Springs businessman, received 1 percent of the votes and is out of the race because he did not get at least 10 percent.
Democrats Jay Fawcett, Curtis Imrie and Brian Scott are also competing to get on the 5th District ballot.
What the Aug. 8 ballot will look like is still up in the air. Thursday is the deadline for candidates not already on the ballot to turn in 1,000 valid signatures.
On the Republican side, Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera has turned in 1,700 signatures. Duncan Bremer, a former county commissioner, and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Bentley Rayburn are collecting signatures.
Theresa Sauer, a spokeswoman for Rivera, said the mayor was at a fundraiser Friday night.
“The way things are lining up … I think Crank and Lamborn are going to paint themselves as hard conservatives. We’re going to paint ourselves as the candidate with strong business ties, strong leadership, the military experience and experience serving people here in the district.”
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
