‘Carpetbagger.’ ‘Selfish.’ ‘Fighter.’ Lauren Boebert’s potential new constituents – and her rivals – weigh in
The small town of Limon on the eastern Colorado plains was slowly creeping back to post-holiday life on the third day of 2024, exactly one week after controversial Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert announced she’d be switching from the state’s 3rd congressional district to this one, the 4th – hundreds of miles from her hometown and the communities she currently represents.
The swap made big news in political circles and on social media, the latest in a long list of headlines grabbed by the 37-year-old new grandmother. But in Limon’s hair salon, the lunch cafe, the quilting store … mention of the fiery Republican’s name elicited blank stares. A flicker of recognition ran across one woman’s face as she handled fabric in the 2,000-person enclave.
“Didn’t she used to run ‘over there?’” the Limon resident said, using a colloquial term for the other side of Colorado; then, upon hearing Boebert had joined the race in the Republican primary, she snorted: “At least she’s not a Democrat.”
That derision of the left is a hallmark of the region Boebert hopes to represent, a congressional district even more favourable to Republicans than her current one; the GOP candidate is all but guaranteed to take the seat in CD4. But the area is also filled with ultra-conservatives as averse to outlandish behaviour as they are
