Lauren Boebert Has a Problem: The Colorado Congresswoman nearly lost her bid for re-election year. Democrats are set to take another shot, with the same candidate, in 2024.
What We Know
It was one of the biggest surprises of election night in 2022 and an indication that it would be a better-than-expected night for Democrats: It looked for a while like Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) might lose.
The then-32-year-old former owner of a gun-themed restaurant called Shooter’s Grill, Boebert was first elected to Congress in 2020, and soon emerged as part of a class of young members of Congress associated with wild conspiracy theories and media stunts.
In her bid for a second term representing Colorado’s Third District in 2022, Boebert ran against Democrat Adam Frisch. Frisch actually held a lead on election night, but was overtaken by Boebert a few days later, with the incumbent declared the winner following a recount.
Frisch announced not long after that he was running for the same seat again in 2024, and a new report looks at the Democrats’ strategy for winning back the seat, by just over 500 votes. It was the closest Congressional race anywhere in the country in the 2022 cycle.
How they Plan to Beat Lauren Boebert
According to Insider, Democrats are planning a big push to overtake Lauren Boebert and win the seat back.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have named the seat one of their targets for 2024, while Frisch has also raised $1.7 million so far, with the election more than 18 months away.
“One of our most effective comments that we talked about in the district was she’s not focused on the job, she’s focused on herself,” Frisch told told The Hill, as pointed out by Insider. “I can’t believe she had almost the most embarrassing loss in 20 years and she hasn’t changed one iota. She’s actually doubled down on crazy.”
It’s not only Democrats who have said that.
“She took that very combative style to her everyday work in the US House of Representatives,” Former Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams told The Hill. “I think it started the people in the third congressional district thinking that she wasn’t paying enough attention to the district as she was paying more attention to national politics.”
That approach, however, has led to huge fundraising totals for Boebert, who raised $8 million in the 2022 cycle, money that bought her the narrowest victory for a Congressional seat in the country.
The MAGA in MAGA
Lauren Boebert, in her second term, has been part of the majority in the House, and was added to the high-profile House Oversight Committee. She grilled former Twitter executives in a much-watched hearing in February.
She was also a key part of the revolt by conservatives against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, joining the “never Kevin” caucus, which placed her on the opposite side as there fellow 2021 freshman, Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who backed McCarthy in that fight. Boebert was among those who voted “present” at the end, allowing McCarthy to become Speaker.
Boebert will likely try to tie Frisch to Democrats in Washington who might not be so popular in the Republican-leading district, the Insider story said.
“Extreme House Democrats lost the majority because they hammered families with crime, chaos and skyrocketing costs,” National Republican Congressional Committee communications director Jack Pandol told the site in a statement. “Why would voters change their minds after Democrats spent their time in the minority coddling violent criminals and opposing relief?”
Another pollster described Donald Trump as “toxic” in the state of Colorado, a former swing state that has gone blue in the last several presidential elections.
Earlier this year, Boebert announced that the partner of her 17-year-old son is pregnant, and that she will soon become a grandmother at the age of 36. In a March speech, she praised “rural conservative communities… , because we value the preciousness of life.” Both Boebert and her mother had children at age 18, she said at the time.
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Expertise and Experience:
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
