Lauren Boebert Moved to Colorado's Safest Republican Seat So She Wouldn't Lose, Loses

WINDSOR, Colo. — Democrat Eileen Laubacher won Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, CNN projected at 3:12 p.m. Eastern on Monday. She led Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert 48.8 percent to 47.9 percent with about 98 percent counted.

The Associated Press had not called the race Monday night, the Colorado Sun reported. Boebert has not conceded.

Boebert moved across the state to find a seat she could not lose. She found one. Then she lost it.

In 2022, Boebert held the 3rd District by 546 votes, KUNC reported. At the end of 2023 she left it for the 4th, on the other side of the state. She moved to Windsor.

The 4th is the most solidly Republican congressional seat in Colorado, the Gazette reported. President Trump carried it by more than 18 points in 2024. Boebert won it that year by nearly 12.

The safe seat

That was the whole idea. It was a seat built for a Republican who needed one.

On Tuesday it went to a first-time candidate. Laubacher, 58, of Highlands Ranch, is a retired Navy rear admiral who served 34 years, the Colorado Sun reported. She is also a former Republican.

She outraised Boebert nearly $14 million to $1.2 million, the Gazette reported. That is more than ten to one. In a safe seat, that is supposed to be wasted money.

The record

Boebert came to Congress opposed to earmarks. She later embraced them, KUNC reported.

Last December, President Trump vetoed her Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act. Both chambers had passed it unanimously. It was the first veto of his second term, CBS News reported.

On the trail, she explained her style. “Some may say that I get loud,” Boebert said, according to KUNC. “But when I get loud that means that Lamar is heard, Burlington is heard, Holyoke is heard.”

Lamar, Burlington and Holyoke were heard on Tuesday. So was everybody else in the district. That is how counting works.

What comes next

Her campaign had a plan for this. On Thursday evening, with Laubacher ahead by 3,069 votes, campaign attorney Scott Gessler said the campaign was “investigating some very unusual voting patterns and expect this election to head to a recount, one way or another,” The Denver Post reported. He did not cite specifics.

The unusual pattern, as far as this desk can tell, is that more people voted for the other candidate.

By Monday night Laubacher led by 3,352 votes out of 381,661, NBC News reported. Colorado’s automatic recount threshold is about 930. The lead is more than three times that.

Laubacher declared victory Monday afternoon. “This victory is historic,” she said in a statement, the Colorado Sun reported. “But making history means nothing if we don’t make a difference.” She was in Washington for new-member orientation, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Boebert was in Colorado, waiting. “Declaring victory now is like icing a cake before it comes out of the oven,” she said in a video, according to the Sun. Gessler called it “irresponsible” to declare a winner with ballots still out, the Gazette reported.

A few thousand voters have until 11:59 p.m. Thursday to fix signature problems and other issues on their ballots. Counting must finish Friday, the Sun reported. The cake has been in the oven since Nov. 3.

Boebert has now run in two of Colorado’s eight districts. This desk has prepared a map. It is not an endorsement. It is a map.

“She moved out here because it was safe,” said Wendell Haskins, a Burlington wheat farmer this newspaper invented for the occasion. “Somebody should have told her. Nothing out here is safe. Ask anybody about hail.”

Haskins said he called the 3rd District for comment. It already has a congressman.