Republican incumbent Marilyn Musgrave edged Democratic challenger Angie Paccione in the hotly contested race for the 4th Congressional District with 445 of 446 precincts counted.
Returns showed Musgrave with 104,783 votes or 45.91 percent and Paccione with 97,587 vote or 42.76 percent of the total.
“Win or lose, we fought the good fight, and that is what we wanted to do,” Paccione said Tuesday night from Fort Collins. “I’m proud of my campaign. I’m truly proud of the race we ran.”
Musgrave supporters gathered in Greeley, but the congresswoman was huddled with family and close friends and unavailable for comment.
The two have pounded each other with a succession of negative television ads, as the race tilted from leaning Musgrave’s way to a virtual toss-up.
Eric Eidsness, a former Republican who ran on the Reform Party ticket, was ran a distant third.
Going into the final weekend of campaigning, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pumped $500,000 into television advertising behind Paccione, while President Bush stumped for Musgrave in Greeley in an attempt to rally votes for the two-term congresswoman.
The district has about 421,000 registered voters, according to state records, with 168,738 registered Republicans, 106,681 Democrats and 141,109 unaffiliated voters.
Marilyn Stephens of Loveland, a Republican, crossed party lines and voted for Paccione, and her husband did the same, she said.
“We’re trying to balance the power that is in right now,” Stephens said.
The Iraq war and illegal immigration are the two most important issues facing Congress, Stephens said. “We feel it’s a drain on our system.”
Republicans Clarence and Evee Pfenning of Loveland both voted for Musgrave.
“The job she’s done (in Congress) is good,” Clarence Pfenning said.
Tommy Clark of Loveland, an independent, voted for Paccione.
“The main thing as far as I’m concerned is Musgrave is busy on too many things besides what we need,” Clark said. “It seems to me like she let too much religion come into it.”
In her first term, Musgrave authored a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment defining marriage as only a union between a man and woman. The proposal failed.
During the recent campaign, Musgrave touted her continuing stand against tax increases, and she supported Republican Party efforts to build walls and fences along the nation’s southern borders to slow illegal immigration.
Paccione made the war in Iraq one of her top campaign issues, calling for troop withdrawals from the country. The Democrat focused on voters’ general frustrations with Congress, saying a vote for her is a vote for change.
Eidsness, a former President Reagan appointment to the Environmental Protection Agency, trumpets his previous experience in Washington, saying he knows “beltway politics” and how to get things done.
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
