Lauren Boebert, the firebrand conservative Republican Colorado representative whose three terms in Congress have been marred by multiple controversies, was defeated in her re-election bid.
The gun rights advocate, born-again Christian and one-time QAnon fan lost to Democrat Eileen Laubacher by a less than 1% margin, according to the Associated Press.
“I’m honored by the trust the people of Colorado’s fourth district have placed in me. This campaign was never about party labels. It was about putting people first,” Laubacher said in a statement. “To those who voted for me, thank you, I will strive to make you proud. To those who didn’t, I’ll fight just as hard for you and hope to earn your support.”
This district, which spans the eastern plains of Colorado, is one of the state’s most conservative seats and has long been a Republican stronghold. Laubacher is a retired two-star navy rear admiral, who was deployed to Afghanistan and later worked on the national security council under the Biden administration.
Laubacher just became a registered Democrat in 2025, saying in a debate with Boebert the Republican party had become “nearly unrecognizable”. She focused her campaign on decades of military and national security service.
In a statement congratulating Laubacher, Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, declared: “Lauren Boebert’s sideshow is over.”
Both Laubacher and Boebert moved to Colorado’s fourth congressional district in recent years. Boebert accused Laubacher of moving there and changing parties in order to run for Congress. Likewise, Boebert has been questioned for her move to the district in 2024 after barely eking out a win in the third district’s previous election.
Boebert said the move was because of “dark money” flowing from Hollywood to “steal” district three’s congressional seat: “It’s coming from Hollywood … when you have Barbra Streisand coming in and donating to the Democrat, when you have Ryan Reynolds coming in and donating to the Democrat … It shows you that Hollywood is trying to buy their way into Congress.”
Boebert’s tenure in Congress has been racked with controversy. She decried the 2020 presidential election as being rigged, demanded to carry a handgun on the House floor and was accused of helping incite the January 6 insurrection by tweeting “Today is 1776” the morning of the riots, among other actions. Boebert later condemned the attack on the Capitol.
She went viral in 2023 when she was filmed groping her date, vaping and being escorted out of a Beetlejuice musical in Denver in 2023. Initially, Boebert joked that she would “plead guilty to laughing and singing too loud”, but the incident later led to her publicly apologizing and divorcing her husband (who was not her date).
And just weeks before the election, she was hit by an ethics complaint over allegations she had sexual relationships with three staffers and had paid one to stay silent, allegations she has denied and called “politically motivated”.
Despite the dust-ups and being a Maga loyalist, Boebert did occasionally stand up to Trump. She was one of the most vocal members of Congress calling for the release of the Epstein files, even after the White House tried to persuade her to remove her name from a discharge petition for the documents.
This earned the ire of Trump, who has called Boebert a “carpetbagger” and “dumb”. The president’s first veto of his second term was for a bill sponsored by Boebert that would have funded a drinking water project in district four. The bill had passed the House and Senate unanimously.
“Nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in south-east Colorado many of whom enthusiastically voted for him all three elections,” Boebert said in a statement at the time.
“But hey, if this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans; that’s on them.”
