“The tip of the spear”, that’s how Lauren Boebert described herself, on a bluebird Saturday in June, to a group of her supporters at a small town Republican party barbecue. Other members of the GOP shy away from the most inflammatory issues and controversial fights, she said – but not her.
Boebert’s extreme rightwing stances range from absolute opposition to gun control to questioning the effectiveness of vaccines and the outcome of the 2020 presidential elections. All are conveyed by a social media persona fine-tuned to inflame the culture wars.
It was sweltering inside the gazebo, even with the windows and doors thrown open, but the first-term congresswoman seemed unfazed. Dressed in jeans, a black ballcap and several-inch high heels, she guided her supporters through a litany of inflammatory talking points including immigration, critical race theory, gender transitions and Joe Biden’s mental capacity. The crowd was captivated, with regular shouts of approval and cheering when Boebert paused her careering delivery for effect.
“I’m proud to have brought home 100% conservative voting records to each and every one of you,” she told the crowd at the June barbecue. “From gun rights, to immigration, to border security, to life.”
In just two years in Congress, Boebert has become one of America’s most famous political figures. Along with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, JD Vance and others, she is among a vanguard of younger, stridently conservative politicians following former president Donald Trump’s path to prominence.
Boebert’s public battles against Colorado’s Covid-19 business shutdowns at her restaurant, Shooter’s Grill, in the small town of Rifle (the servers carry sidearms), catapulted her to local fame, helping her unseat several-term incumbent Scott Tipton in the 2020 Republican primary. She won the general election for Colorado’s third congressional district that fall.
Upon arriving in Washington DC she pledged to carry her handgun on to the floor of Congress, heckled President Biden during his first State of the Union, and was censured by the House for racist remarks made about the Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar. In a May debate, Boebert said she was proud of her attempt to block the certification of President Biden’s election.
At the June rally, Boebert spoke to an adoring crowd of core GOP primary voters. If this group and their peers across western Colorado were the sole voters Boebert needed to capture Tuesday’s 2022 Republican primary, she would be a lock. But they are not.
Colorado holds what are known as open primaries. This means independent voters automatically receive election ballots for both Republican and Democratic party elections. These unaffiliated voters outnumber both Republicans and Democrats in Colorado’s third district, making up about 44% of active voters. With the Democratic party’s failure to come up with a high-profile candidate, there has been a concerted anti-Boebert push among quietly dissenting Republicans, angry unaffiliated voters and even Democrats who renounce their party registration to vote in the GOP primary against Boebert.
“Boebert is an embarrassment to our district,” said Susan Reed, a retired cultural archeologist, who decided to change her registration from Democrat to unaffiliated. This was a first for Reed, but Boebert offends her. “We need a legislator and not a Fox News personality,” she said.
Reed is not alone. Across the district, Democrats are de-registering in some numbers. According to an analysis by Colorado Public Radio, the Democratic party lost about 3,700 registered voters between February and May in Boebert’s congressional district (Boebert won the primary two years ago by…
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