Lauren Boebert may have moved districts, but it doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere when it comes to Congress.
Boebert coasted to a primary victory on Tuesday, setting up an all-but-certain third term in Congress. Boebert moved from her current congressional district, where she narrowly won reelection in 2022 by 546 votes, to a new district that went for Donald Trump by 18% in 2020.
Despite allegations of carpetbagging — Boebert moved to the district in December — the controversial congresswoman fended off the five other Republicans in the primary to be declared the victor shortly after polls closed Tuesday night, according to NBC and Decision Desk HQ.
Her win capped off a remarkable comeback for Boebert, who has been in the news for seemingly all the wrong reasons for the last year.
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In July, Boebert threw away a pin handed to her by a family of one of the Uvalde victims. The incident earned her headlines like “‘You disrespected a child who was slain’ | Congresswoman Boebert trashes pin honoring Uvalde victim.” She later apologized for disrespecting the victim and her family.
Two months later, Boebert and a date were kicked out of a traveling performance of “Beetlejuice” in Denver. After initially denying that she was vaping and being disruptive during the musical, security footage from the theater showed her doing just that — as well as getting handsy with her date. In an apology, Boebert blamed her behavior on her recent messy divorce.
But it was that divorce which provided Boebert with the reason she gave for switching districts. (It didn’t hurt that the new district is the reddest in the state.)
While Boebert was under fire in her previous district, it’s clear she’s still a conservative favorite among Colorado Republicans.
“Lauren Boebert has three major advantages: near-universal name ID, fundraising and the fact that anti-Boebert Republicans couldn’t coalesce around a single challenger,” Kyle Clark, a local journalist who moderated one of the primary debates, told NOTUS.
Clark added that none of Boebert’s five primary challengers were able to bring in significant fundraising to “amplify their critiques of her conduct and record.” A one-on-one primary, Clark added, would have been a real problem for her.
The seat was left vacant for Boebert after Rep. Ken Buck — a former Freedom Caucus member who’s taken a turn against the MAGA wing of the GOP — decided he was done with Congress.
Meanwhile, Greg Lopez, a former gubernatorial candidate, won the special election and will serve the remainder of Buck’s term as a placeholder congressman.
Boebert initially criticized Buck’s resignation timing and claimed it was the act of a Republican who works with Democrats to pass bipartisan bills.
“The uniparty is pulling out all the stops. They’ve set up a special election on the same day as my primary to confuse voters,” Boebert said on Rumble in March.
Buck shot down that criticism and declined to endorse any candidates, telling Politico, “I feel really strongly that we have a lot of good candidates … and I’m not going to interfere in that process.”
It turned out the process ended with Boebert as his successor.
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Ryan Hernández is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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