Lauren Boebert says she'll seek office in a different congressional district in 2024

Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Republican congresswoman representing a huge swath of western and southern Colorado, announced Wednesday that in the 2024 election, she plans on changing districts.

Boebert said in a Facebook video that she intends to seek office in Colorado's 4th Congressional District, which covers the Eastern Plains, currently represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Ken Buck. Buck said last month that he won't seek reelection in 2024, due to the Republican Party's support of former President Donald Trump and, what he called an embrace of conspiracy theories. He's represented the district since 2015.

"I wanted to let you, my constituents and supporters, hear directly from me about my plans for the 2024 election cycle and the importance of maintaining a conservative voice for Colorado in Congress as well as keeping our Republican House majority," Boebert wrote in the caption of that Facebook video.

"I cannot put into words how grateful I am for everyone who has steadfastly stood alongside me over the past year and beyond," she continued. "I am going to do everything in my power to represent the 3rd District well for the remainder of this term as I work to earn the trust of grassroots conservative voters in the 4th District to represent them in 2025."

The full video can be seen here.

Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, which Boebert currently represents, covers the northwest corner of the state south through Grand Junction to the southeast corner, east to Pueblo and the southern central portion of the state. That district has had both Democratic and Republican representatives over the past few decades.

The 4th Congressional District includes most of the rural eastern half of Colorado and also includes the city of Loveland and heavily populated Douglas County. Aside from one-term Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey, who served from 2009 to 2011, the district hasn't seen a Democratic representative since 1973.

Boebert won her 2022 bid for reelection against Democratic challenger Adam Frisch by just over 500 votes with over 300,000 ballots cast. The race was so close it triggered an automatic recount. Frisch said he's planning to run for that district again.

Frisch, in a statement on Thursday, touted the work he and his campaign team have done in this election and criticized Boebert generally, but also on an incident where she was removed from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts during a performance of Beetlejuice.

"Boebert is running scared from CD-3 because she knows she can't match our campaign's ability to connect with voters and the hard work we have put in to provide them with a common sense voice in Congress, including driving over 45,000 miles and holding hundreds of public meetings in every corner of this great district. Even before the Beetlejuice debacle that embarrassed her constituents, our campaign was polling ahead of Boebert because voters saw that we were showing up in their communities and appreciated the hard work, authenticity, sincerity, and independence that this campaign embodies."

Frisch had out-raised Boebert by a wide margin in this campaign cycle. According to OpenSecrets, a campaign finance tracking website, he's raised over $7.72 million to her $2.39 million as of Thursday. Of that, $5 million Frisch has raised has been small individual donations of $200 or less, $2.7 million was from large individual donations and about $26,000 came from political action committees or PACs. Boebert has raised a little over $1 million in small donations, about $960,000 in large donations and $172,000 from PACs.

Campaign finance data was still largely lacking for the 4th Congressional District.

It's unclear how many people will run for that seat in total, but Republicans Russ Andrews, Jeff Hurd and Curtis McCrackin announced their intent to challenge Boebert in the primary for the 3rd Congressional District. Democrats Anna Stout and Adam Withrow, along with Frisch, as well as three third-party candidates said they'll be seeking that seat too.

In 2022, Buck won reelection handily with over 60% of the vote. Boebert will face a crowded field in the primary election with six other Republican candidates having announced their intent to run. Whoever wins that bid will then face the winner of the Democratic primary; three people have announced their intent to seek the Democratic nomination.

In a statement, Boebert said she'll continue her efforts fighting for conservatives in Colorado and the U.S. and against "Democrat socialists and communists" and "Hollywood elites and national progressive groups."

Boebert was first elected to her seat in 2020, beating 10-year incumbent Scott Tipton, who Trump endorsed at the time.

Boebert lives near the western end of the state in Garfield County, hundreds of miles from the 4th Congressional District. If elected to represent the 4th Congressional District, she said she would relocate to that district. Members of Congress are not required to live in the districts they represent, only in the same state.

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib called Boebert "cowardly" for "abandoning" her constituents, in a statement.

"Lauren Boebert can run, but she can't hide," Murib said, in part. "The good people of Western and Southern Colorado didn't wait for an election to beat Lauren Boebert -- we scared her straight and chased her out of her own district. With this carpetbagging move, Lauren Boebert has shown herself to be everything she claims she isn't: a typical swampy politician looking for a reason to call Washington D.C. home. She's a loser in CD3, and she'll be a loser in CD4."

Trent Leisy, who's running for the seat Boebert is now seeking, criticized the move from a strategic standpoint.

"Lauren Boebert has officially given the Democrats a Congressional seat by switching districts to run in my race," he tweeted Wednesday. "This move would give the Democrats control of the House. Lauren should be a fighter and keep her district red! In Congress, I would NEVER vote to expand FISA and am running in a district that I actually live in."

John Padora, a progressive Democrat running for the seat, also characterized Boebert's switch as an abandonment of voters in her current district.

"We never imagined we'd be running against Boebert, but her switching races only reminds us of her character. She abandoned her constituents in CD-3 and she'll do the same with ours if it serves her," he said Thursday. "Our district deserves better than an extremist who will cut and run when it gets tough. I will fight for the people of CD-4 because I know our district and I know our values. It's time to bring integrity and decency back to Congress, and defeat Boebert once and for all."

Karen Breslin, another Democratic candidate in the 4th Congressional District race, greeted Boebert into the race in a statement Thursday, characterizing herself and Boebert as "fighters," but refuting Boebert's claims that so-called "socialism and communism" were the source of Americans' economic instability.

"I welcome Lauren Boebert's entry into the race," she said. "I am familiar with her record, appreciate her passion, and value her plain talk. She tells voters that she is fighting against socialism and communism, but the real reason Americans are struggling so much is because the largest corporations and the wealthiest people control our political process. That is what I will be fighting against when I am elected. Both Lauren and I are fighters, but I will take on the corruption that has left so many Americans out in the cold, politically and economically."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article mistakenly included the reference to the city of Greeley being in 4th Congressional District.