January 07, 2020 01:32 PM UTC

"Yosemite Samantha" Assails Tipton Over "Amnesty Bill"

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports, upstart CD-3 Republican primary challenger Lauren Boebert broadsided GOP incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton over his recent vote with “Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 224 other Democrats” in favor of a new farm worker visa program bill:

Rifle restaurant owner Lauren Boebert, who announced last month that she is challenging the four-term congressman in the June primary, said that when Tipton voted for the Farm Workers Modernization Act of 2019 last month, he was voting for a pathway to citizenship for “illegal farm workers and their families.”

That bill, which established a new certified agricultural worker status and revamped parts of the nation’s H-2A agricultural visa program, cleared the U.S. House on Dec. 11 on a 260-165 vote. Thirty three other House Republicans voted for the bill along with Tipton, the only GOP representative in Colorado’s congressional delegation to do so.

“It was certainly shocking that you voted alongside Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 224 other Democrats to give amnesty to millions of illegal farm workers and their families,” Boebert wrote. “To then falsely claim, ‘This is NOT an amnesty bill” is a good indicator of why you should no longer be representing hardworking American citizens in Congress. How stupid do you believe voters are?”

Although it would be disingenuous for Democrats to directly criticize Rep. Tipton for voting with them and against an overwhelming majority of fellow Republicans, this vote could still be a big problem for Tipton in a Republican primary. There’s nothing that gets the blood of rock-ribbed conservative primary voters up like “caving” on immigration, and since President Donald Trump has made demonizing immigrants a central GOP campaign plank Tipton’s vote with Democrats on this bill is even more problematic–again, not in the general election, but Tipton has to get there first.

We said previously that Boebert’s best strategy is to seize the ideological momentum among hardcore GOP primary voters from Tipton, and successfully sell herself as a stronger conservative and more than just a novel personality. It still remains to be seen whether Boebert can compete down the stretch with Tipton’s well-oiled re-election machine, but savaging Tipton over this vote is strategically right on target.

Boebert says her objective is to become the “conservative AOC.” So far, so good.