Retreating from the turmoil in Washington, D.C., Rep. Lauren Boebert arrived in bucolic southwest Colorado to turmoil of a different sort — the lingering impact of an embarrassing moment when she was caught on tape vaping and groping with a date during a musical production of “Beetlejuice.”
The scandal threw a wrench into an already tough reelection bid. After Boebert won her last race by just 546 votes, she began revamping her campaign strategy. It now includes apologies to voters at campaign events for an episode that has rattled even loyal Republicans.
“Most of us were like ‘holy cow,’” said Beverly Cuyler, a long-time Boebert supporter. “And one of the big reasons for that is a gap between how she presented herself as a Christian and what ended up happening.”
Expected to face a rematch with Democrat Adam Frisch, in a race that could determine which party controls Congress, Boebert tackled the embarrassment head-on at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Archuleta County.’
“I owe each and every one of you here a deep, heartfelt apology,” she said as murmurs of agreement faded to attentive silence.
Boebert, who defended former President Donald Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election and stood in the vanguard of his Make America Great Again movement, appears clear-eyed about the challenge ahead.
She’s offered olive branches to local newspapers she once spurned as biased. So-called ballot harvesting, which she’s decried as an underhanded Democratic tactic, will be part of her campaign strategy. Her supporters can attend boot camps to become versed in her talking points, which have partly shifted from national priorities to more local matters, a strategy endorsed by the state GOP.
“Her misstep in 2022 was not being as focused on (the district), so she’s making adjustments to not make that mistake again,” said Dave Williams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.
Frisch has raised at least $7.7 million — the third largest House campaign chest nationwide — to Boebert’s $2.4 million. He’s asking voters to help him “stop the circus,” reviving a slogan from the 2022 election.
“Democrats certainly smell blood in the water,” Boebert said in an interview, sitting in a long hall in southwest Colorado before the Lincoln Day Dinner.
Boebert said she’s always focused on district issues in past campaigns, but added that this time around they are pushing more aggressive messaging on the ground — emphasizing legislation she’s helped push through Congress that directly impacts southwest Colorado.
“Certainly when you had the closest congressional race in the entire country, you know, it’s a big deal,” her new campaign manager, Drew Sexton, said in an interview. “There was a need to kind of beef up on staff after, you know, the last cycle and, you know, kind of wanted to have a different approach.”
It’s a balancing act. Boebert has cultivated a national profile as larger-than-Colorado, a far-right agitator who ascends to the stage of conservative conferences to geysers of sparks. In speeches across the country, she’s blurred the line between political rally and religious revival.
But she also has a job as a policymaker, where she’s focused on nuts-and-bolts issues that matter to her constituents: forest management, water rights, jobs, and public lands. For many supporters, the two roles overlap.
Her district’s vast expanse includes ruddy red mesas standing sentry over ranches owned for generations, coal mining hamlets in the Rocky Mountains, and a streak of frontier libertarianism among its residents — where God and big government are both feared.
Voters take deep pride in their way of life, and many feel it’s being forgotten and demeaned. Boebert’s full-throated defense of agrarian, conservative, Christian values helps explain how she got to Congress in the first place.
“Our voices get drowned out by bigger cities,” said Cody Perkins, 31, who arrived at the Lincoln Day Dinner bedecked in an American flag suit. “I just like that she’s not afraid to speak up. … We need a voice.”
