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Republican Lauren Boebert has lost her Colorado seat in the US House of Representatives, ending a congressional career in which she became known as one of Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters. The Associated Press declared Democrat Eileen Laubacher the winner after all votes were counted, BBC World reported.
The race was too close to call on election night last week. Boebert, 39, will not serve a fourth term.
She rose to national prominence as a face of Trump’s “Make America Great Again”, or MAGA, movement after entering Colorado politics at the end of 2019. Like Trump, Boebert was not a career politician.
Boebert’s rise in Colorado politics
Boebert first drew attention after encouraging staff at her restaurant, “Shooters”, in the small Colorado town of Rifle to openly carry firearms. Her rallies focused on gun rights and opposition to Democrats, the establishment, illegal immigration and what she described as “woke” causes.
Republican state representative Matt Soper, now Colorado’s most senior Republican legislator, said he met Boebert and her then-husband, Jayson, while she was collecting signatures for a state-voting initiative. She arrived wearing jeans and carrying a Glock on her hip, he told the BBC. Her husband, he recalled, looked “like a classic oilman” in jeans, boots, a cowboy hat and a belt buckle.
The image resonated with voters in western Colorado, an area of ranches, farms, rugged terrain and ski towns. Trump won the constituency with 53% of the vote in 2016.
In the run-up to the 2020 election, those voters backed Boebert as she defeated a five-term Republican incumbent in the party primary. She earned her high school equivalency diploma shortly before the victory, then won the seat in November, just before her 34th birthday.
Soper said he had not expected her political career to lead to national and international attention or a six-year stint in Congress.
In the House, Boebert drew regular attention with aggressive pro-Trump rhetoric. Alongside fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, she became one of the movement’s most outspoken supporters. In 2022, she and Greene heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address.
Controversies and a district switch
Her growing national profile made it harder, in the view of Colorado Mesa University political science professor Justin Gollob, for Boebert to maintain the image of a small-town fighter. In 2022, Democrat Adam Frisch, a former Aspen councilman, nearly defeated her; Boebert won by 546 votes.
County Republican chairman Rich Wyatt said Colorado voters had initially been drawn to her direct manner and conservative Christian views. But her public image faced pressure from personal controversies, including her divorce and an incident at a Denver performance of the musical “Beetlejuice”.
Video of Boebert and a man being escorted out of the theatre went viral. Staff accused her of vaping, taking photographs and causing a disturbance. Footage released by the theatre showed her arguing with staff before dancing with her date as they were removed. An incident report said she had asked staff, “Do you know who I am?” and said, “I will be contacting the mayor,” the “Denver Post” reported.
In December, facing another contest against Frisch, Boebert announced she would move to Colorado’s easternmost district, which had a reliable Republican voting record. With Trump’s endorsement, she won the seat in 2024.
During Trump’s second term, however, Boebert joined three other House Republicans in pushing for the full release of the Epstein files. Trump later vetoed a water bill she had sponsored. As she sought re-election this year, he criticised her on social media, invited candidates to challenge her in the primary after the filing deadline had passed, and called her “dumb” and “weak-minded”. He ultimately endorsed her.
Laubacher, a Navy veteran and former two-star rear admiral who retired in 2024, presented a challenge as a moderate candidate and former Republican. Peggy Lozen, a 72-year-old constituent who voted for Trump in 2016 but not afterwards, said she had been alienated by Boebert’s conduct during Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address. She voted for Laubacher and put up a sign supporting her.
Although Boebert’s next move is uncertain, Wyatt said he did not expect her to disappear from public life: “You haven’t seen the end of Lauren Boebert.”
