Republicans fume at Lauren Boebert for “seat shopping” after district swap

The chairman of Colorado’s Republican Party isn’t pleased with Rep. Lauren Boebert’s, R-Colo., decision to skip out on a reelection bid in her home district to instead move to a more Republican-friendly district on the other side of the state. “From a party perspective, we certainly don’t think it was the best move,” Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williamson told CNN Thursday. “We felt that she was best suited for Congressional District 3 and that she was in the best position to win reelection and retain that for Republicans.”

Boebert won against Democrat Adam Frisch by a hair in 2022, earning just 546 more votes of the over 327,000 cast, according to The Daily Beast. While the far-right representative’s current district — which has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+7 — covers the western and southern parts of the state, the fourth congressional district resides to the East of Denver and has a rating of R+13, Colorado’s most conservative. That district’s current representative, Rep. Ken Buck, is retiring. Williamson predicted that Boebert would have a hard time explaining her move to voters in the fourth district. “It’s kind of a problematic proposition,” he told CNN. “But it’s… something for the voters to decide.”

News of Boebert’s new district also didn’t sit well with Republicans already running there. In a text to Talking Points Memo, former state Sen. Ted Harvey, one of Boebert’s new rivals, called her move a “desperate stunt” driven by her political problems. Another, state Rep. Richard Holtorf, ripped Boebert in a statement released shortly after her announcement. “The voters of Colorado’s 4th Congressional District want steady conservative leadership from their communities. Seat shopping isn’t something the voters look kindly upon,” Holtorf said. “If you can’t win in your home, you can’t win here.”