U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was accused last week of meeting with organizers of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but it is unclear whether those accusations – or other flash points from her freshman year in Congress – will have any impact on her supporters ahead of the November 2022 elections.
“The fact that she (Boebert) riles up the Democrats and the lefties is a plus in my eyes,” Greg Ehrig, a resident of La Plata County and a self-identified Libertarian, said when speaking about Boebert’s first term in Congress.
Ehrig said he doesn’t believe the allegations will have an effect on her re-election chances, because, similar to what Boebert has said, he doesn’t think what the rioters did was unlawful. He said while there are a lot of people in La Plata County who already don’t like her, because it leans Democratic, there are voters who like her stance and outspokenness about gun rights and her opposition to “authoritarianism.”
Anonymous sources who reportedly helped plan and organize the Jan. 6 riots told Rolling Stone magazine last week that Boebert met with organizers beforehand, along with other Republican Congress members.
Boebert immediately denied the report in a news release. She wrote, “I had no role in the planning or execution of any event that took place at the Capitol or anywhere in Washington, DC on January 6th. With the help of my staff, I accepted an invitation to speak at one event but ultimately I did not speak at any events on January 6th.”
Boebert said she didn’t give organizers a tour of the Capitol building days before the insurrection; rather, it was her family who she was with on the tour.
She also was photographed at a September dinner in New York with people involved in the insurrection, including Tina Forte, who live-streamed from the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The allegations come at the halfway point of Boebert’s two-year term representing Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
Boebert lost La Plata County by 15 percentage points, but won most Republican strongholds. The new congressional district map approved Monday by the Supreme Court leans more in her favor than it did in 2020.
Suzanne Tyrpak lives in Durango and didn’t vote for Boebert in 2020 despite having voted for Republicans in the past. She said Boebert has made no effort to reconcile or listen to the interests of her constituents who didn’t vote for her in blue areas.
“There seems to be a mentality with all those people that were followers of Donald Trump that they’re only representing the people that voted for them, not the people that they might not agree with,” Tyrpak said. “It’s part of the problem why things have gotten so divided because there’s very little reaching across the aisle.”
Marina Zimmerman, the Republican hoping to unseat Boebert, is trying to take advantage of that sentiment and the allegations against her opponent. She called the recent allegations against Boebert “embarrassing” because she views the insurrection as a crime.
While Boebert has riled up the media and quickly became a well-known name in Congress, that’s not the usual story of freshmen members of the House. But Ehrig said people shouldn’t discount her for not getting much through the House, as members in their first term usually don’t.
However, Zimmerman said Boebert’s constant opposition to legislation isn’t productive.
“Nothing ever gets approved, nothing ever passes,” Zimmerman said. “The people of this district, from what I have been able to tell, they want her out anyway, they’re embarrassed by her.”
La Plata County GOP Chairman Dave Peters is not backing down in his support of Boebert.
“This article is another distraction by the liberal media to take the focus away from the White House administration’s lack of action on economic issues, supply chain, failure to secure our borders, as well as many others that are becoming a growing concern as evidenced in polling numbers,” Peters wrote in an email to The Durango Herald.
Kelsey Carolan is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a senior graduating in December 2021 at American University in Washington, D.C.
