{"id":30002,"date":"2023-12-28T01:32:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-28T08:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lauren-boebert-will-switch-congressional-districts-to-improve-her-chances-of-winning-in-2024\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:08:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:08:47","slug":"lauren-boebert-will-switch-congressional-districts-to-improve-her-chances-of-winning-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lauren-boebert-will-switch-congressional-districts-to-improve-her-chances-of-winning-in-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Boebert will switch congressional districts to improve her chances of winning in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Rep.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., speaks Saturday during the Montezuma County Lincoln Day Dinner at the Ute Mountain Casino in Towaoc. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert announced Wednesday night that she is ditching her reelection bid next year in Colorado\u2019s 3rd Congressional District to run instead in the state\u2019s 4th Congressional District, which is on the other side of the state and is far more favorable to Republicans.<\/p>\n

Boebert won by just 546 votes last year in the 3rd District, which spans Colorado\u2019s Western Slope into Pueblo and southeastern Colorado. The 4th District is anchored in Douglas County and includes Loveland and the state\u2019s rural Eastern Plains.<\/p>\n

The 3rd District leans 9 percentage points in Republicans\u2019 favor while the 4th District leans 27 points toward the GOP, according to a nonpartisan analysis of election results from 2016 to 2020 by staffers for the Colorado legislature. Boebert doesn\u2019t have to live in the 4th District to represent it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not arrive at this decision easily,\u201d Boebert said in a Facebook video announcing the move. \u201cA lot of prayer, a lot of tough conversations and a lot of perspective convinced me that this is the best way I can continue to fight for Colorado, for the conservative movement and for my children\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bombshell news comes as Boebert\u2019s reelection chances in the 3rd District look dim.<\/p>\n

Her narrow victory in 2022 was seen as a referendum on her boisterous behavior in Congress \u2013 including interrupting President Joe Biden\u2019s State of the Union address in 2022 and making an Islamophobic joke about Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Her image was further tarnished when she and a male companion were ejected in September from a performance in Denver of the musical \u201cBeetlejuice\u201d for talking loudly, vaping and using her phone.<\/p>\n

Surveillance cameras also recorded Boebert and her date apparently groping each other during the musical.<\/p>\n

Boebert initially downplayed the incident, denying that she was vaping. But the congresswoman released a mea culpa after the video recording was released and then went on a districtwide apology tour asking her constituents for their trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to a personal night out,\u201d she said at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Montezuma County, \u201cI hope that you accept my heartfelt apology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cBeetlejuice\u201d incident and the national headlines that followed came as Boebert was trying to moderate her image and focus her campaign message more on her legislative work in Congress.<\/p>\n

She passed her first bill \u2013 the Pueblo Jobs Act \u2013 this year as part of the National Defense Authorization Act and then voted against ousting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October, calling the vote a distraction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always looking to find common sense legislation to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle,\u201d Boebert recently told The Sun in an interview.<\/p>\n

But the congresswoman\u2019s switch to run in the 4th District is an acknowledgment that Boebert\u2019s attempted shift from a no-holds-barred, gun-on-her-hip politician to a serious policymaker likely won\u2019t be enough to win reelection to her current seat. She has struggled to fundraise for her 3rd District reelection bid and has lost the support of big-name Republicans in western Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally,\u201d Boebert said in her video Wednesday, \u201cthis announcement is a fresh start following a pretty difficult year for me and my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boebert, a 37-year-old divorced mother of four boys who is also a grandmother, lives in Garfield County, near the town of Silt, which is hundreds of miles from the 4th District\u2019s boundaries. However, members of Congress don\u2019t have to live in their district \u2013 just the state the district is in \u2013 so she doesn\u2019t have to move to run in the 4th District.<\/p>\n

The congresswoman said in her Facebook video that she would move into the 4th District in 2024. She highlighted how the 3rd District and 4th District are similar in their rural makeup.<\/p>\n

Boebert had $1.4 million in her 3rd District campaign account at the end of September, money that she can use in her 4th District bid and that will give her a significant advantage over other GOP primary contenders in the district.<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s decision to run in the 4th District doesn\u2019t come without political risk.<\/p>\n

The 4th District is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Windsor, but he announced Nov. 1 that he wouldn\u2019t run for reelection in 2024, citing the GOP\u2019s embrace of election conspiracies and Congress\u2019 inability to get work done.<\/p>\n

There is already a long list of candidates vying to replace Buck, including:<\/p>\n

Former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling. He\u2019s currently a Logan County commissioner.<\/div>\n
State Rep. Richard Holtorf of Akron<\/div>\n
Conservative talk radio host Deborah Flora<\/div>\n
Former state Sen. Ted Harvey of Highlands Ranch<\/div>\n

Colorado House Minority Leader Mike Lynch of Wellington is also expected to enter the race in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s decision to not run for reelection in the 3rd District is likely good news for national Republicans who need the seat to hold onto their narrow majority in the House. Without Boebert running, the GOP likely has a better chance of keeping control of the district.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little evidence to suggest a Democrat can win in the 3rd District if Boebert isn\u2019t the Republican nominee. The district hasn\u2019t sent a Democrat to Congress since 2008. And when redistricting happened in 2021, the 3rd District was made more favorable to Republicans.<\/p>\n

Boebert is the variable that best explains why the reliably GOP district moved into the competitive column. Democrats\u2019 messaging in the district has been anti-Boebert, not anti-Republican \u2013 and there\u2019s a big reason for that.<\/p>\n

If you exclude Boebert\u2019s 546-vote win in 2022, the closest 3rd District race since Republicans took control of the district in 2010 happened that year, when U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton beat incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. John Salazar by 4 percentage points. That was before the district\u2019s boundaries were redrawn in 2011 ahead of the 2012 election cycle and made more favorable to Republicans.<\/p>\n

Boebert beat Tipton in the Republican primary in 2020.<\/p>\n

The second-closest 3rd District race since 2010 other than Boebert\u2019s close shave in 2022 was Boebert\u2019s 6-point victory in 2020 over former state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush, a Democrat.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans will hold the 3rd and I\u2019ll proudly represent the 4th and Republicans will be stronger for it,\u201d Boebert said in her video, saying that he decision was in part because of Democratic spending against her heading into the election year.<\/p>\n

Rocky Mountain Values, a liberal political nonprofit that doesn\u2019t disclose its donors, began airing ads in April criticizing Boebert. The group told The Sun it planned to spend $2 million through next year to block the congresswoman from winning reelection.<\/p>\n

But Boebert had intraparty problems in the 3rd District, too.<\/p>\n

There were already several Republicans running against Boebert in the 3rd District primary, including Grand Junction attorney Jeff Hurd, who is supported by a number of big-name Republicans, including former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown.<\/p>\n

The conservative editorial board of The Colorado Springs Gazette also endorsed Hurd over Boebert this month.<\/p>\n

Two other GOP contenders \u2013 Carbondale investor Russ Andrews and Delta County business owner Curtis McCrackin \u2013 may be able to self-fund their campaigns.<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s departure from the race is likely to prompt other Republicans to run in the 3rd District.<\/p>\n

On the Democratic side, former Aspen City Councilman Adam Frisch is running to represent the 3rd District after losing to Boebert in 2022. Grand Junction Mayor Anna Stout is also running in the Democratic primary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boebert will run in Colorado\u2019s 4th Congressional District next year instead of the 3rd Congressional District. The 4th District is far more favorable to Republicans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28,265,367],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines","tag-politics","tag-u-s-rep-lauren-boebert"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80936,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30002\/revisions\/80936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30002"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}