Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert announced this evening that rather than seek a third term in Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, she will instead seek the GOP nomination in Colorado's 4th Congressional District.
In so doing, the 37-year old Congresswoman will go from a district which covers Colorado's Western Slope and cities like Pueblo and Aspen and borders New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Wyoming to a district which encompasses the Eastern Plains and borders Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. It's not exactly going across town. Boebert lives hundreds of miles from her new district.
It is obvious that Boebert doesn't think she will win in Colorado's 3rd. After all, she narrowly defeated Adam Frisch in the 2022 mid-terms by only 546 votes and would likely have faced Frisch yet again. It is also quite possible Boebert thought she was vulnerable to Republican upstart Jeff Hurd, an attorney based in Grand Junction, who has been doing an effective job of fundraising and getting endorsements.
Colorado's 4th Congressional District became an attractive option for Boebert when incumbent Ken Buck announced last month that he would not seek re-election. However, there are several Republicans already vying for the seat and many GOPers will view Boebert as an opportunistic carpetbagger. Boebert's best chance of winning the nomination is if she gets defeated, former President Trump's endorsement. Should she win the nomination then she will win the seat which is the safest GOP seat in the Rocky Mountain state.
Boebert has been a loose cannon since her ardent embrace of QAnon conspiracy theories during her first election in 2020. She is also well known as an Evangelical fundamentalist who is anti-LGBTQ and opposes the separation of church and state.
However, her reputation in Republican circles took a hit back in September when she was caught on videotape at a performance of Beetlejuice in Denver where she was vaping and getting very, very handsy with her date. Now she is grasping for support. Or should I say groping.
The best-case scenario would be for Boebert's gambit to crash and burn. In which case, she'll be a footnote like Madison Cawthorn. Yet it must be emphasized that the independent variable is Trump. When Trump endorsed Boebert for her re-election bid he called her "a fearless leader."
If Trump isn't going to go gentle into that good night, then neither is Boebert.
But if Trump doesn't give Boebert his blessing then she might be groping at straws.
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