{"id":43960,"date":"2021-11-01T13:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T19:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-will-questions-about-boeberts-role-in-jan-6-attacks-affect-her-bid-for-re-election\/"},"modified":"2021-11-01T19:10:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T19:10:00","slug":"how-will-questions-about-boeberts-role-in-jan-6-attacks-affect-her-bid-for-re-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-will-questions-about-boeberts-role-in-jan-6-attacks-affect-her-bid-for-re-election\/","title":{"rendered":"How will questions about Boebert\u2019s role in Jan. 6 attacks affect her bid for re-election?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Trump
Trump supporters gather outside the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.<\/span>The Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was accused last week of meeting with organizers of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but it is unclear whether those accusations \u2013 or other flash points from her freshman year in Congress \u2013 will have any impact on her supporters ahead of the November 2022 elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that she (Boebert) riles up the Democrats and the lefties is a plus in my eyes,\u201d Greg Ehrig, a resident of La Plata County and a self-identified Libertarian, said when speaking about Boebert\u2019s first term in Congress.<\/p>\n

Ehrig said he doesn\u2019t believe the allegations will have an effect on her re-election chances, because, similar to what Boebert has said, he doesn\u2019t think what the rioters did was unlawful. He said while there are a lot of people in La Plata County who already don\u2019t like her, because it leans Democratic, there are voters who like her stance and outspokenness about gun rights and her opposition to \u201cauthoritarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anonymous sources who reportedly helped plan and organize the Jan. 6 riots told Rolling Stone<\/em> magazine<\/a> last week that Boebert met with organizers beforehand, along with other Republican Congress members.<\/p>\n

\"Boebert\"
Boebert<\/span>Patrick Cavan Brown<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Boebert immediately denied the report in a news release. She wrote, \u201cI had no role in the planning or execution of any event that took place at the Capitol or anywhere in Washington, DC on January 6th. With the help of my staff, I accepted an invitation to speak at one event but ultimately I did not speak at any events on January 6th.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boebert said she didn\u2019t give organizers a tour of the Capitol building days before the insurrection; rather, it was her family who she was with on the tour.<\/p>\n

She also was photographed at a September dinner in New York with people involved in the insurrection, including Tina Forte, who live-streamed from the Capitol on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n

The allegations come at the halfway point of Boebert\u2019s two-year term representing Colorado\u2019s 3rd Congressional District.<\/p>\n

Boebert lost La Plata County by 15 percentage points, but won most Republican strongholds. The new congressional district map approved Monday by the Supreme Court leans more in her favor than it did in 2020.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Tyrpak lives in Durango and didn\u2019t vote for Boebert in 2020 despite having voted for Republicans in the past. She said Boebert has made no effort to reconcile or listen to the interests of her constituents who didn\u2019t vote for her in blue areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere seems to be a mentality with all those people that were followers of Donald Trump that they\u2019re only representing the people that voted for them, not the people that they might not agree with,\u201d Tyrpak said. \u201cIt\u2019s part of the problem why things have gotten so divided because there\u2019s very little reaching across the aisle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Zimmerman\"
Zimmerman<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Marina Zimmerman, the Republican hoping to unseat Boebert, is trying to take advantage of that sentiment and the allegations against her opponent. She called the recent allegations against Boebert \u201cembarrassing\u201d because she views the insurrection as a crime.<\/p>\n

While Boebert has riled up the media and quickly became a well-known name in Congress, that\u2019s not the usual story of freshmen members of the House. But Ehrig said people shouldn\u2019t discount her for not getting much through the House, as members in their first term usually don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

However, Zimmerman said Boebert\u2019s constant opposition to legislation isn\u2019t productive.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing ever gets approved, nothing ever passes,\u201d Zimmerman said. \u201cThe people of this district, from what I have been able to tell, they want her out anyway, they\u2019re embarrassed by her.\u201d<\/p>\n

La Plata County GOP Chairman Dave Peters is not backing down in his support of Boebert.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis article is another distraction by the liberal media to take the focus away from the White House administration\u2019s lack of action on economic issues, supply chain, failure to secure our borders, as well as many others that are becoming a growing concern as evidenced in polling numbers,\u201d Peters wrote in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kelsey Carolan is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a senior graduating in December 2021 at American University in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congresswoman denies meeting with organizers ahead of event<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[981,28,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-3rd-congressional-district","tag-headlines","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43960","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=43960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43960"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}