Trump endorsed Lauren Boebert in a heavily MAGA district. It still might not be enough

Rep. Lauren Boebert walked into a fairgrounds event hall  on the eastern Colorado plains on Sunday, her heels sky-high, her sons in tow and a newly-minted endorsement from the 45th president in her campaign arsenal.

Then she took a seat behind a misspelt name card – “Lauren Boebart” – and limped to a third-place finish in a straw poll against eight other people vying for the Republican nomination in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District.

Even the endorsement of Trump in heavy MAGA territory may not be enough to save the embattled Boebert a seat in Congress, it seems.

The fiery Republican, like some of her opponents, had driven hundreds of miles to the candidate forum in Holyoke, a farming town with a population under 2,400 just 15 minutes from the Nebraska border.

The event, hosted jointly by the Phillips, Sedgwick and Yuma County Republicans, was held at the Phillips County Event Center, adjacent to the fairgrounds and overlooking a massive grain elevator that loomed against the sky across a pickup-laden parking lot.

Nine of the 11 candidates vying for the seat in heavily conservative CD4 turned up for the forum, which drew just upwards of 200 people. (One candidate, Peter Yu, sent his apologies while caring for his sick elderly mother; another, veteran and activist Justin Schreiber, was a no-show.)

Attendees who purchased $10 tickets online picked them up at the centre from volunteers distributing handwritten, alphabetized white envelopes. Most voters were over 50, many clad in Republican red and MAGA attire, and they perused not only candidate booths but tables for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and swag including $25 baseball caps proclaiming “JESUS IS MY SAVIOR, TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT.”

It was a small political event but the biggest the county had ever seen, according to locals; many were referring to it as “the convention.” And the attendance of so many candidates on such a humble stage hammered home a salient point: The race is tough, the seat is up for grabs, and every vote from every corner counts.

The proceedings began with the Pledge of Allegiance, then a prayer; after the forum and the straw poll, they ended with another head-bowing benediction and a rousing chorus of God Bless America. God and guns featured heavily all day as Boebert tried to hold her own against hardline opponents who, unlike her, had a home turf advantage.

Back in CD3, it was a Democrat nipping at her heels; Adam Frisch lost to Boebert by just 546 votes in 2022 and has run a well-oiled, well-financed campaign that seemed firmly on pace to potentially beat her. Frisch targeted voters fed up with Boebert’s antics and personal drama in addition to her perceived preference for the national stage over Colorado issues. The congresswoman acknowledged as much after her shock announcement of the district switch, telling The Associated Press she could “read the tea leaves.” So she controversially moved her campaign to the more heavily conservative CD4, transplanting her boys from the Western Slope to Windsor as she cited family troubles after her recent divorce and the need for a new start amidst outcries of carpetbagging and opportunism.

But on Sunday, the MAGA provocateur found herself just one amongst a competitive field of GOP candidates trying to out-conservative and out-Christian each other – just days before the start of CD4 GOP precinct caucuses. Most candidates made a point of highlighting their deep local ties; Boebert, instead, pointed to her experience already in DC.

“I have fought for individual appropriations bills and gone line by line through these appropriation bills to cut unnecessary spending, whether that be departments, or particular bureaucrats, or even defund bureaucrats’ salary and reduce it down to $1,” she said Sunday. “Currently we are working to save $100bn by reducing the spending by at least 1 per cent with caps. And so that’s something that I am currently working on, not just a promise for the future. I’m doing it for you now.”

Voters in the crowd were noticeably smiling and nodding along with many of her answers, and she even drew applause at times. Several people asked for photos with the congresswoman during breaks; one older bashful gentleman told The Independent after the event that he’d wanted to ask for a pic but chickened out.

Boebert spoke with the practised confidence of a frequent TV pundit, her long waves perfect under the cowboy hat she took off only when bowing her head in prayer.  She wrote notes for answers and frequently checked her phone, looking over and sometimes grinning at her campaign adviser.

“This is not a coronation for me,” she said Sunday, echoing her exact words from the first debate held in January where her middle-of-the-pack finish drew gasps from attendees (Logan County Commissioner Jerry Sonnenberg topped that straw poll.)

After insisting that she wanted to “earn your trust” and “learn about local issues,” she continued: “I have been fighting for Colorado for nearly four years. Each and every one of us is impacted by the work that I’ve done in Washington DC … I have done everything that I have promised voters that I would do. I have the voting record to back it.”

She then brought out the big guns.

“And that is why yesterday, the greatest president of the United States of America, President Donald J Trump, has fully and completely endorsed me in this race,” she said, “Because he knows he needs me alongside of him in the fight when he returns to Washington, DC.”

There was hardcore Trump support throughout the room and panel, of course, including from the candidate seated directly next to her, Ted Harvey. Though they seemed to chat amicably and whisper to each other during the forum, the former state senator had taken aim at her on social media over the Trump endorsement.

“As the chairman of one of the largest pro-Trump super PACs, I am a huge supporter of President Trump,” Harvey wrote on Facebook over the weekend. “He is obviously very loyal to his congressional supporters in DC. Just as he endorsed Congressman Tipton in CD3 in 2020, he then endorsed Boebert in 2022 as well. Yet, two years later Boebert’s Christian conservative friends and neighbors have said enough is enough. There is a reason she has been forced to desperately pack her bags, and move 240 miles to the east. Despite Trump’s loyal endorsement, I’m confident the voters of CD4 will not be fooled by Lauren’s vain attempt to cling to power.”

He was also among the candidates Sunday who took sly digs at Boebert during their timed answers to questions posed by moderators and closing remarks.

Calling himself a “God-fearing Christian conservative,” he told voters: “Washington DC is not a place that you send somebody to learn on the job when they get there. You need to send a solid, God-fearing patriotic American who will go to Washington DC and fight for you and your values.”

State Rep. Mike Lynch – who resigned as minority leader earlier this year after his own drink-driving scandal – was another who threw veiled barbs at Boebert during the forum.

“What you need to know about me is, I’m not going to be your best speaker, I’m not going to be here on CNN on Fox News guy. But I’m going to be the guy where action is louder than words,” he said, as one of the GOP’s loudest provocateurs sat at the other end of the table.

The forum, though, was overall civil, despite coming just days after the latest negative headline to hit the Republican. Tyler Jay Boebert, her 18-year-old son and new father to her grandson, was arrested last week in Rifle and faces felony charges in connection with a string of thefts.

In the weeks before that, police had repeatedly been called following altercations with her ex-husband, whom she divorced last year. No one mentioned Boebert’s own bad behaviour, specifically her ejection from a Denver theatre in September after she was caught vaping and allegedly groping her date – a Democratic bar owner from Aspen, no less.

And there was nary an eye-roll in the audience on Sunday when, during one answer, the 37-year-old grandmother bragged about “going from county to county informing Coloradans about the sexualization of our children with the comprehensive sex ed that was beginning in Colorado, and just how intense that is and how it actually ruins our children and exposes them to things that they should not.”

Her myriad controversies didn’t deter Trump — a man familiar with scandal — from throwing his weight behind Boebert the day before the Holyoke event. In a post on TruthSocial that she proudly shared, he wrote that Boebert “has led the fight to Impeach Joe Biden, Stop Illegal Immigration, Defend the Second Amendment, Protect our Wonderful Ranchers and Farmers, Support our Military and Veterans, Secure our Natural Resources to Pursue Energy Dominance, and Stand Up to the Radical Democrats who want to Destroy our Beautiful Country.

“Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is a trusted America First Fighter, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District!” he wrote.

But that endorsement – which she repeatedly highlighted during the forum – still didn’t stop voters from choosing longtime CD4 politician Jerry Sonnenberg as the winner of the straw poll. Harvey came in second, followed by Boebert.

That came as no surprise to Crystal Frank, who teaches history and American government at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, one of the few two-year educational institutions within CD4. There’s not a single four-year university or college in the district.

“The bottom line is, CD4 is … still a strong, conservative agricultural district,” she told The Independent on Monday. “They want somebody that was raised here that understands the agriculture of this unique district, from the north to the south, that understands our water out here, that understands our natural resources, battles, our energy battles, our livestock and crop battles.”

Frank said Boebert isn’t an easy sell for local voters who “are struggling with her coming into this district and, quite frankly, with any candidate that does not have a background in this district, it’s going to be a heavy struggle for the active voters of this district.”

The current standout candidate, Sonnenberg, has not only topped straw polls but also enjoyed the endorsements from a veritable who’s-who of established, longtime CD4 Republicans. The Sedwick County Republican Party in January was “excited to be the first county under the state GOP advisory to endorse” him, as well, writing that Sonnenberg had “served this county for sixteen years with distinction and integrity and that is the type of representative we want in Washington.”

Boebert’s abandonment of CD3 and attempt to insert herself into the fabric of CD4 did not go down well with many voters, Frank says.

“She’s had several supporters out here in this area, financial supporters the last few years, that will no longer give to her,” she said.

That CD4 loyalty could trump Trump’s endorsement, says Frank, who grew up in the district and whose great-grandparents homesteaded here.

“You could take my family, for example,” she said. “They’re going to support Trump, but they’re not going to fall lock and step behind her just because Trump said that. There’s a lot of Trump supporters that are not election deniers and not that extreme on that far side out here. There’s your everyday farmers and ranchers, they’re strong businessmen, but they’re going to support Trump when it comes down to Trump and Biden.”

Voters like that understand that Trump endorsed Boebert because  “He doesn’t have a relationship with any of the others,” Frank said. “It doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t work well with the Jerry Sonnenbergs or the other elected officials. He just doesn’t know them yet.”

Voter reaction to Boebert on Sunday seemed to support that. The congresswoman, Holyoke Republican Ken Ham said, “was about what I expected.”

“I think that [Trump’s] endorsement will influence people,” his wife, Kristie, said cryptically.

“Does that absolutely mean just because Trump endorsed them that they’re going to vote that way? No, but it will influence them because they want to be able to have a group of people that can work together in unity and support each other.”

Kristie said she appreciated hearing Boebert talk about her legislative activity to date because “it helped us to understand exactly where she was at” – adding that listening to the candidates in person made a real difference, and Deborah Flora, a filmmaker and radio host and the only other woman in the race, impressed her.

Boebert left quickly after the debate, posting a photo from the drive back to Windsor on her campaign Facebook page. Her campaign manager did not respond to requests for comment from The Independent, and on Monday the mother-of-four appeared in a Denver court for a hearing about whether to make the restraining order against her husband permanent. It was again delayed when Jayson Boebert failed to appear.

As volunteers tallied the straw poll on Sunday, MC Kim Monson lobbed softball questions at the candidates – asking their favourite holiday (several, including Boebert, picked Easter to expound upon the Resurrection and their faith) and who had deeply influenced them during their lives.

Boebert, in a final attempt to ingratiate herself with the crowd, again reminded them of Trump’s support and appealed to their egos.

“I flew here after being with the president yesterday – the real president, President Trump – yesterday, flew in from DC to DIA and picked up my boys and came here to be with each and every one of you,” she said. “So right now you are my biggest mentors.”