Lauren Boebert Met GOP Voters in Her New District. It Got Ugly.

Representative Lauren Boebert is struggling to gain traction in her new district’s primary election, as nearly every Republican voter and lawmaker seems to loathe her intensely.

Boebert, who currently represents Colorado’s 3rd district, announced in December that she would run for election in the 4th district in 2024, instead. But if she expected to cruise to victory in the Republican stronghold, then she couldn’t have been more wrong.

At a recent event in Elbert County, southeast of Denver, Republican voters were deeply skeptical of Boebert’s candidacy, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. While some people said they still supported Boebert, others said they had grown tired of all the drama she courts.

“I don’t appreciate, as a Christian, people saying they’re Christian to get your vote and then turning out to be a lowlife, and now I just kind of think of her as a lowlife,” Judy Scofield, a retired university employee, told the Journal.

Many people highlighted the fact that Boebert had switched districts, making them trust her less.

“On Facebook, she’s not been well received by Republicans,” said GOP voter Tammi Flemming. “It’s the shenanigans and the drama and moving districts.”

Retired medical contractor Chris Ware was more blunt: “I will not vote for her. Period. She’s not one of us,” he said.

Boebert decided to switch districts after she was reelected in 2022 by such a narrow margin that the election nearly went to a recount. Her public image has taken a massive battering in recent months, as well, after she and a date received national backlash when they were caught on security cameras talking, using their phones, vaping, and groping each other while seeing a performance of Beetlejuice.

Her fellow primary competitors have continually accused her of carpetbagging, and the Elbert County event was no different. “You don’t need someone who’s going to go from district to district because they can’t win,” Weld County Councilman Trent Leisy told the crowd.

Boebert comes to the 11-person race with $1.3 million in campaign funds and plenty of name recognition, which could help her stand out from the crowd. But that fame has yet to help her out. During the first primary debate in January, Boebert ranked fifth out of eight candidates in an informal straw poll. While on stage, none of her opponents said they would support her if they ended up dropping out.

“The idea that because [the district is] a Republican stronghold, that they’re going to nominate a fringe conservative like a Boebert in the primary is a wrong notion—this thing is a horse race,” Republican strategist Josh Penry told the Journal.