May 10, 2024 12:08 PM UTC

Lauren Boebert For Life? Those Are The Stakes

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• by: Colorado Pols

FiveThirtyEight’s Kayleigh Rogers has an in-depth look out today at the fast-approaching June 25th Republican primary in CO-04, pitting carpetbagging quasi-incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert against a crowded field of alternative candidates–a situation that, as we’ve been warning all year, increasingly favors Boebert in a primary that will in all likelihood decide who will represent this ultra-safe Republican district for years to come:

[A]fter nearly losing her seat in 2022 and surviving an objectively awful year in her personal life, Boebert is starting over on the other side of the state. Running in the 4th Congressional District in Colorado’s Eastern Plains, she’s hoping to reignite some of that early appeal in the state’s most conservative district — where, if she can win over enough voters in the June primary, she’ll be virtually guaranteed a seat in Congress as long as she wants it. There are a number of things working in her favor — name recognition, a crowded primary and a healthy war chest — but will they be enough for Boebert to inspire the same kind of support she had when she was just Lauren from Rifle?

The answer, as our readers know, is unless the crowded primary field shrinks dramatically in the next few short weeks, it’s looking pretty good for Boebert despite an annus horribilis that almost no one saw her surviving just a few months ago–including Boebert’s own campaign:

“The red carpet was not rolled out for her in January,” said Drew Sexton, a spokesperson for Boebert’s campaign. Indeed, a February poll of likely Republican voters in the 4th District found 42 percent had an unfavorable view of Boebert, more than the 38 percent who had a favorable view. And of the 49 percent who said they weren’t certain who they would vote for in the primary, 63 percent said it wouldn’t be Boebert…

Despite it all, opines Kayleigh Rogers and there’s less to quibble with every day:

[T]he spark she ignited on the Western Slope in 2020 seems to be rekindling on the other side of the state. In Colorado, there are two ways for candidates to get on the ballot for a primary election: either by collecting signatures or earning at least 30 percent of the vote at the district assembly (a meeting of local party organizers and devotees). Boebert managed to do both, and she even took top billing at the 4th District assembly in April. Now, the firebrand congresswoman is just one more first-place finish away from what is probably a safe House seat for life.

Boebert’s strategy in the CO-04 primary as we’ve repeatedly explained in this space is to win the race with a small plurality of support, relying on the crowded field of low-name ID opponents to claim fractional but in aggregate determinative shares of primary voters that allow Boebert’s stronger name recognition to carry the day–with a winning percentage around Boebert’s ceiling of support indicated February’s poll of the race, somewhere in the low 30s.

If there was a sense of urgency among Boebert’s unfriends in the Republican Party to stop her improbable triumph over personal and professional foibles that would have sunk just about any other candidate, we’re not seeing it as of this writing. There is no apparent push from influential Republicans to dead-ender primary candidates to withdraw and give a more viable contender a chance at a straight fight, which polls say Boebert would likely lose.

The consequence of that inaction could be Lauren Boebert representing Colorado Republicans in Congress for decades, or until her snowballing scandals finally do enough damage to endanger her Colorado’s safest Republican seat.

If that is not something fellow Republicans want, time is fast running out to prevent it.