Three Colorado House races still uncalled on Thursday

The Associated Press rated the races in the 3rd, 4th and 5th congressional districts too early to call in its latest tallies on Thursday. The other five districts have been called, each for a Democrat, including the 8th District, where Manny Rutinel defeated Republican Rep. Gabe Evans. The three open races will decide whether the delegation that goes to Washington in January is split five to three or tilts further toward the Democrats.

The closest of the three is the 4th District, on the Eastern Plains and in the suburbs and exurbs east and south of Denver. Democrat Eileen Laubacher had 176,162 votes, 48.73 percent, against 173,649 votes, 48.04 percent, for Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, a lead of 2,513 votes. Libertarian Douglas Mangeris had 11,669 votes. The Associated Press estimated that 92.75 percent of the expected vote in the district had been counted.

In the 3rd District, which takes in the Western Slope and southern Colorado, Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd had 160,263 votes against 154,867 for Democrat Dwayne Romero, a lead of 5,396 votes. Libertarian Cory Robertson had 5,349 votes and unaffiliated candidate Clifton Brown had 5,162. The Associated Press estimated the count in that district at 95.57 percent of the expected vote, the furthest along of the three uncalled races, and still rated it too early to call.

The widest lead among the three belongs to Democrat Jessica Killin in the 5th District, centered on Colorado Springs. Killin had 140,713 votes against 127,946 for Republican Rep. Jeff Crank, a lead of 12,767 votes, with Libertarian Mark Elworth at 5,032 votes and Christopher Mitchell of the American Constitution Party at 4,596. The Associated Press estimated that 87.61 percent of the expected vote there had been counted, the smallest share of the three districts, and it also rated that race too early to call.

None of the three leaders has been declared a winner, and none of the results anywhere in Colorado is official yet. County clerks are in what the Secretary of State calls post-election reporting: counties continue counting ballots and upload updated results periodically, and state rules require substantially complete results by the ninth day after Election Day. Ballots from military and overseas voters can still arrive, and voters whose signatures were questioned have until Nov. 12 to fix the problem.

The finish of the count is set by the canvass. Under the Secretary of State's published reporting rules, a county's results are not official until its canvass board certifies them, which must happen on or before the 22nd day after Election Day. Until then, every total in the three districts is an unofficial tally that later uploads can still move, which is why a lead of a few thousand votes out of more than 300,000 counted is not yet a result.

What is settled is the shape of the rest of the delegation. Melat Kiros won the 1st District, Joe Neguse the 2nd, Jason Crow the 6th and Brittany Pettersen the 7th, and Rutinel's win in the 8th flipped a seat Republicans held. If the current leads in the 4th and 5th districts hold, Democrats would hold seven of the state's eight seats, with Hurd's 3rd District the only one still led by a Republican.