Retired Rear Adm. Eileen Laubacher, a Democrat, will flip Colorado’s 4th District, CNN’s Decision Desk projects, ending conservative firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert’s tenure in Congress.
Boebert’s loss comes after she elected to run in a more conservative district last cycle in an effort to preserve her political future. But Laubacher, who served more than three decades in the Navy, capitalized on the national headwinds against the GOP and focused her campaign on affordability issues.
The win denies Boebert, an ally of President Donald Trump and one of the most outspoken conservatives in the House Republican conference, a fourth term. Boebert was first elected in 2020, after she upset a fifth-term Republican incumbent in a primary.
In that time, she has emerged as one of the most recognizable, and at times polarizing, faces of the GOP’s MAGA wing, drawing attention from both Democrats and Republicans. Former President Joe Biden, whom she heckled during his 2022 State of the Union address, once billed her as “one of the leaders of this extreme MAGA movement.” The 39-year-old has also been a source of frustration for Republican speakers Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson.
Trump endorsed Boebert days before the election, praising her in a Truth Social post as a “MAGA Warrior, who has been with us from the very beginning.” But the pair have also been at odds at times. She drew the president’s ire earlier this year when she campaigned with one of his most vocal Republican critics in the House, Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, in his primary. The appearance prompted Trump to call her “dumb” and “weak-minded” and he threatened to withdraw his endorsement.
Boebert also crossed Trump and House Republican leaders last year when she joined a Democratic push to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files, resisting a White House effort to sway her vote. At the time, GOP leaders opposed the release of the files, citing the potential disclosure of the names of Epstein’s victims.
This wasn’t the first time Boebert faced a tough reelection fight. She won reelection in 2024 by over 11 points, but nearly lost her race in a different district in 2022. She beat Democrat Adam Frisch by only 546 votes.
