Lauren Boebert, the conservative and firebrand Republican Rep. from Colorado whose three terms in Congress were marred by multiple controversies, was defeated in her re-election bid.
The gun rights advocate, born-again Christian and former QAnon fan, lost to Democrat Eileen Laubacher by a margin of less than 1%, according to the Associated Press.
“I am honored by the trust the people of Colorado’s Fourth District have placed in me. This campaign was never about party labels. Instead, it was about putting people first,” Laubacher said in a statement. “To those who voted for me, thank you, I will strive to make you proud. To those who did not, I will fight just as hard for you and hope to earn your support.”
This district, which spans Colorado’s eastern plains, is one of the most conservative seats in the state and has long been a Republican stronghold. Laubacher is a retired two-star Navy rear admiral who was deployed to Afghanistan and later worked on the National Security Council under the Biden administration.
Laubacher just became a registered Democrat in 2025, saying in a debate with Boebert that the Republican Party had become “almost unrecognizable.” She focused her campaign on decades of military service and national security.
In a statement congratulating Laubacher, Suzan DelBene, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said: “The Lauren Boebert show is over. »
Laubacher and Boebert both moved to Colorado’s 4th Congressional District in recent years. Boebert accused Laubacher of moving there and switching parties in order to run for Congress. Similarly, Boebert was questioned about moving to the district in 2024 after barely eking out a victory in the previous Third District election.
Boebert said the move was due to “dark money” coming from Hollywood to “steal” the District Three congressional seat: “It’s coming from Hollywood… when you have Barbra Streisand coming in and donating to the Democrat, when you have Ryan Reynolds coming in and donating to the Democrat… It shows you that Hollywood is trying to buy its way into Congress.”
Boebert’s tenure in Congress was fraught with difficulties. She denounced the 2020 presidential election as rigged, demanded to carry a handgun in the House and was accused of helping incite the Jan. 6 insurrection by tweeting “Today is 1776” on the morning of the riots, among other actions. Boebert later condemned the attack on the Capitol.
She went viral in 2023 when she was filmed groping her date, vaping, and being escorted out of a Beetlejuice musical in Denver in 2023. Initially, Boebert joked that she would “plead guilty to laughing and singing too loud”, but the incident later led her to publicly apologize and divorce her husband (who was not her appointment).
And just weeks before the election, she was the subject of an ethics complaint over allegations that she had sex with three staffers and paid one to remain silent, allegations she denied and called “politically motivated.”
Despite the upheavals and being a Maga loyalist, Boebert stood up to Trump at times. She was one of the most vocal members of Congress calling for the release of the Epstein files, even after the White House tried to persuade her to remove her name from a petition to release the documents.
This drew the ire of Trump, who called Boebert a “carpetster” and “stupid.” The president’s first veto in his second term was over a Boebert-sponsored bill that would have funded a drinking water project in District Four. The bill was unanimously passed by the House and Senate.
“Nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean water to 50,000 people in southeastern Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for him in all three elections,” Boebert said in a statement at the time.
“But hey, if this administration wants to leave its legacy by blocking projects that provide water to rural Americans, that’s on them.”
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