Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert is refusing to throw in the towel in her reelection fight, insisting the race for the state’s 4th Congressional District is far from over even after CNN projected Monday that Democrat Eileen Laubacher had won the seat.
“The fat lady ain’t sung yet,” Boebert told a TMZ reporter outside the Capitol on Monday.
The Republican firebrand pointed to thousands of ballots that are still being cured, the process that allows voters to correct errors on mail-in and absentee ballots. She also noted that military and overseas ballots still need to arrive and be counted.
With nearly all ballots tallied, Laubacher held 48.8% of the vote to Boebert’s 47.9%, according to the Associated Press, a margin of roughly 3,200 votes. Libertarian Douglas Mangeris took about 3% of the vote. The race was so close that no major network declared a winner until nearly a week after Election Day.
Under Colorado law, a mandatory recount is triggered only if the margin falls within half a percentage point.
Laubacher’s lead grew as late ballots came in from counties that favored her, after Boebert’s strongest county, Weld, finished its count. Boebert’s campaign attorney, former Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, has said the campaign is looking into what he called unusual voting patterns, though he has not said what those patterns are.
When pressed on how she would feel about losing her seat, Boebert said it would be almost liberating in a sense. She stressed that if she does lose, her priority would be making sure her staff land good positions outside her congressional office.
A Laubacher win would mark a major upset. The 4th District is the most Republican-leaning House seat in Colorado, and a Democrat has not won it since 2008, when the district’s boundaries included Larimer County and Greeley.
The sprawling district covers much of Colorado’s Eastern Plains, along with fast-growing suburban areas including Douglas County.
Boebert, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, first won election to Congress in 2020, when she ousted a five-term Republican incumbent, Scott Tipton, in a primary for the 3rd District on the Western Slope. She nearly lost that seat in 2022 before switching to the more conservative 4th District in 2024.
Even then, Boebert ran behind the top of the ticket. Trump carried the district by 20 points in 2024, while Boebert won it by 11.6 points.
This cycle, Democrats targeted the seat as one in play, and the money followed. Laubacher raised nearly $14 million, more than ten times the roughly $1.2 million Boebert brought in.
Boebert’s race is among more than a dozen House contests that Decision Desk HQ had not yet called as of Monday evening.
The tight contest comes after a difficult night for Republicans nationwide, as Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate and GOP candidates fell in traditionally red territory from Texas to Kansas.
Boebert has served in the House since 2021.
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