Colorado’s Contentious Clown-Car Crash Beetlejuice Primary Moves Into High Gear

Will Lauren Boebert Ride Again? Who Will Marjorie Traitor Greene Endorse?

When the recount was finally done in mid-December, Lauren Boebert had eked out the narrowest of victories in her west and south Colorado reelection bid. In a district with an R+15 partisan lean, she won with less than 0.2% of the ballots cast— just 546 votes. It looked likely that she was headed to certain defeat in a November rematch. Adam Frisch was all but measuring the windows of her office for new curtains.

And then, following one scandal after another, she was caught vaping and masturbating her date in a theater showing a family-friendly production of Beetlejuice. As she always does, she denied everything… until the video tapes were released. At that point… she switched congressional districts— from the southwest to the northeast— to an even redder district, which had opened up because of the retirement of fellow Freedom Caucus crackpot Ken Buck. Thursday, the 9 Republicans vying for the seat (June 25 primary) took part in their first debate. It went badly— especially for Boebert, who, according to the Colorado Sun, “spent much of the evening fending off attacks.”

Boebert faced direct and indirect questions and attacks from the start of the debate. State Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, a rancher in far northeast Colorado, pointed out in his opening remarks that he was a lifelong resident of the district, which spans across the Eastern Plains into Loveland and Douglas County. 

“This district needs somebody who understands those issues and has grown up with those issues,” Sonnenberg said. 

Conservative talk radio host Deborah Flora asked Boebert how she could square criticizing a Democratic opponent in the last election cycle for living in one district and running in another and then do just that.

“My boys and I needed a fresh start,” said Boebert, who recently signed a lease in Weld County. “That’s been very public of what home life looks like. And I’m sorry to bring that up. I tried to put it into a very pretty package and bring my ex-husband lots of honor. But since there is nothing private about my personal life, it is out there and my boys need some freedom from what has been going on.”

Boebert, who arrived at the debate holding her grandson, appeared to be referencing the recent arrest of her ex-husband in alleged domestic violence incidents in Garfield County involving her and her children. 

…In trying to stand out from her opponents during the debate, Boebert highlighted her work in Congress. 

“Everyone (on stage) will talk like a Freedom Caucus member, but there is only one who governs as a Freedom Caucus member,” she said. 

Boebert also voiced support for Donald Trump and falsely claimed that he won the 2020 presidential election.

“I’ll be voting for President Trump,” she said when asked who she would vote for this year in the Republican presidential primary, “his third victory as president.”

Boebert wasn’t on the defensive all night. She attacked Lynch for being unable to possess a gun because of a conviction in a 2022 drunken driving arrest. That dig prompted Lynch to ask the carpetbagger question.

But Lynch wasn’t the only candidate who’s been in trouble with the law. Six of the nine candidates who participated in the deabte, including Boebert, raised their hands when asked who had been arrested in the past, drawing laughter from the candidates and the crowd.

Boebert wasn’t the fan favorite in a straw poll of attendees that followed the debate. She came in fifth among the participants, behind Sonnenberg, Lynch, Flora and state Rep. Richard Holtorf, in that order.  

Reporting for the NY Times, Chris Cameron wrote that “Boebert appeared at ease delivering fiery rhetoric and espousing her pro-Trump, hard-right stances among similarly conservative peers at the debate in Fort Lupton… But Boebert also faced steady criticism from her rivals about switching districts— having relocated to the other side of the state to improve her chances after a strong primary challenger emerged in the Third District. State Representative Mike Lynch suggested that Boebert was a ‘carpetbagger’ after she brought up a drunken-driving arrest that forced Lynch to step down on Wednesday as the minority leader for Republicans in the statehouse.”

Boebert lied about her arrest record, telling the audience “that she had been arrested only once, for failing to appear in court for careless driving, what she called in the debate ‘a simple traffic violation that was unpaid.’ But the local news media have reported at least two additional arrests. In one incident in 2015, Boebert told police officers who were arresting her that she ‘had friends at Fox News’ and that the arrest would be national news.”