Lauren Boebert Wins House Election After Switching Districts

Rep. Lauren Boebert, the polarizing congresswoman from Colorado, won a House seat in a new district after opting to seek reelection in a more firmly Republican area.

She defeated Democratic nominee Trisha Calvarese, a former speechwriter for the AFL-CIO.

Boebert, 37, who eked out a shockingly close win in Colorado’s 3rd District in 2022, decided to boost her chances at securing a third term by running in the much redder 4th District this year.

First elected in 2020, Boebert is one of the most controversial members of Congress and a prominent member of the House Freedom Caucus, the furthest-right faction on Capitol Hill.

Boebert is perhaps best known for her disputes with fellow House members, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat and practicing Muslim whom Boebert once called a member of the “Jihad Squad” — a remark that Omar and others denounced as “Islamophobic.”

A staunch gun rights advocate, Boebert once refused to let Capitol police search her bag after setting off metal detectors. She was also infamously escorted out of a Denver performance of the musical Beetlejuice after allegedly causing a “disturbance” by vaping and recording on her phone.

Boebert was expected to cruise to reelection in the 3rd Congressional District during the 2022 midterms, but she ultimately earned only 546 more votes than little-known challenger Adam Frisch.

Frisch, a Democrat who punched above his weight in a usually Republican district, announced he would run for a second time following the nail-biter 2022 race. But in December 2023, Boebert confirmed that she would instead vie for another seat.

“It’s the right move for me personally, and it’s the right decision for those who support our conservative movement,” Boebert said in her announcement. “Colorado’s 4th District is hungry for an unapologetic defender of freedom with a proven track record of standing strong for conservative principles.”