Lauren Boebert wins crowded House GOP primary in new Colorado district

Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert has emerged victorious in the primary election in her new Colorado district.  

The controversial Congresswoman defeated five GOP opponents in a competitive primary in Colorado's 4th Congressional District and will be favored to win the seat in November's general election. She will face Trisha Calvarese, winner of the Democratic primary.

Boebert won Tuesday night with slightly more than 43% of the vote. With 94% of the votes counted she had 52,006 votes.

In her victory party in Northern Colorado, Boebert wore a Make America Great Again hat signed by Donald Trump and Trump-branded sneakers. She called for a unified GOP and building bridges with other Republicans.

"We need to get engaged at the local level and begin to take our state back," she said. "And we have to stay informed and never be lulled to sleep by the enemy again. Don't ever let anyone say that your voice doesn't matter, that your vote does not count. Because it absolutely does."

Boebert currently represents the 3rd Congressional District in Colorado but decided to run in the heavily conservative District 4 after fellow Republican Rep. Ken Buck stepped down earlier this year.

CD4 includes much of the eastern part of the state as well as Loveland and Windsor in Northern Colorado, and Douglas County in the southern part of the Denver metro area. Nearly half of voters in the district are in Douglas County, where CBS News Colorado Political Specialist Shaun Boyd says Republicans are "less MAGA and more mainstream."

While there are nearly twice as many Republicans as Democrats in the county, former President Trump won Douglas County by just seven percentage points in 2020. Overall, Trump lost Colorado by 13 percentage points in 2020.

Boebert abandoned her seat in CD3 after nearly losing to Democrat Adam Frisch in 2022. When she announced that she would run for a different district in January, she said the move was being done after "a pretty difficult year for me and my family." That included going through a headline-making divorce.

During her campaign, Boebert touted her endorsement from Trump, something Democratic CBS Colorado Democratic political analyst Mike Dino says helped her immensely.

"President Trump's endorsement can't be underestimated," Dino said. "That was very helpful to her early on because, you know, it was a big risk for her to leave her comfortable -- or at least seemingly comfortable -- 3rd Congressional District and move over across the Continental Divide."

Boebert spoke at length about immigration issues while she campaigned. During a CBS Colorado debate last month, she claimed that undocumented immigrants are overwhelming systems and services in the U.S. and called for mass deportations.

"Build the wall, deport them all," she said, in a line she repeated throughout her campaign.

CBS Colorado Republican political analyst Dick Wadhams said Boebert's significant fundraising advantage over her opponents also gave her a big boost.

"Congresswoman Lauren Boebert had two very distinct advantages going into this campaign: the money she had in the bank and her name recognition as an incumbent congresswoman," Wadhams said. "None of her five opponents had anything close to either one of those. So that big, diffused field helped her a lot."

Boebert reminded her supporters on Tuesday night that "it's not over," and urged them to get involved in the presidential campaign.

"President Trump needs us now more than ever to get him in the race, in the fight, in the White House Nov. 5," she said. "We have a lot of work to do, don't slow down. Don't relent."

During CBS Colorado's debate last month, several of Boebert's opponents spoke of their farming and ranching backgrounds, and in doing so indirectly highlighted Boebert's newcomer status to the district. Only candidate Deborah Flora, a conservative radio talk show host, attacked Boebert for her move, criticizing her for "abandoning her neighbors in CD3."

Flora described the controversial congresswoman as someone who is more concerned with being in the national spotlight than representing Coloradans.

"We've seen how Lauren Boebert would represent us," Flora said. "Missing key votes while chasing cameras and being in the center of D.C. drama instead of delivering real solutions for the people."

As of 10:30 p.m. Flora was in third place in the primary with approximately 13.8% of the vote.

"Lauren Boebert did win tonight and that's the way it worked out in this race," said Flora after the race was called.  

Jerry Sonnenberg was in second with approximately 14.3%. Mike Lynch and Richard Holtorf each had 11% and Peter Yu had 7%.

"The bottom line is, [Boebert] didn't get over 50%, and I think that's significant to consider," Dino said.

Republican Greg Lopez won Tuesday night's special election in CD4 and will serve out the remainder of Buck's term. Calvarese defeated Ike McCorkle and John Padora in the Democratic primary race in CD4.