USAupdated 22m ago2 min read
Eileen Laubacher Flips Colorado’s 4th District, Ending Lauren Boebert’s Congressional Tenure
“Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s campaign said it expects a recount”
“Boebert’s campaign said last week it saw ‘unusual voting patterns’ in the results and Boebert could seek a recount.”
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Democrat Eileen Laubacher defeats Republican Lauren Boebert to win Colorado's 4th District. The loss ends Boebert’s tenure in Congress, per CNN projections.
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Boebert’s Colorado loss
CNN’s Decision Desk projects that retired Rear Adm. Eileen Laubacher, a Democrat, will flip Colorado’s 4th District and end Rep. Lauren Boebert’s tenure in Congress.
Boebert’s loss denies her a fourth term after she was first elected in 2020 and later ran in a more conservative district last cycle to preserve her political future.
Laubacher won with 98 percent of votes counted, receiving 185,923 votes and 48.8 percent, while Boebert totaled 182,686 ballots for 47.9 percent.
Libertarian contender Douglas Mangeris gathered 12,605 votes, representing 3.3 percent of the remaining share, and it places the final margin at 3,237 votes.
Former President Joe Biden once billed Boebert as “one of the leaders of this extreme MAGA movement,” and Trump endorsed Boebert days before the election in a Truth Social post calling her a “MAGA Warrior, who has been with us from the very beginning.”
Recount expectations and rules
Boebert’s campaign expects a recount as votes continue to be counted, with Scott Gessler saying, "We are investigating some very unusual voting patterns and expect this election to head to a recount, one way or another."
Political science professor Robert Preuhs said, "Very very unlikely that recounts will overturn or change an election result, particularly when we’re looking at, you know, 2,000 to 3,000 vote spreads," and Colorado law requires an automatic recount when the margin is 0.5% or less.
Colorado law calls for an automatic recount if the margin is within half a percent of the total number of votes for the top candidate, which is about 930 votes in the morning of Nov. 9.
Boebert could seek a recount even if Laubacher maintains her lead, and recounts can be requested between 10 and 22 days after the election, with the earliest request this year on Nov. 13 and the latest on Nov. 25.
Nov. 12 is the deadline for overseas military and absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received, and voters can cure ballots with signature verification issues by that date.
What the outcome changes
Laubacher’s projected win ends Boebert’s tenure in Congress and denies her a fourth term, and Laubacher is a Navy veteran who focused her campaign on affordability issues.
Laubacher’s lead was solidified by strong support in the district’s more densely populated suburban centers, including Douglas County where more than 201,000 ballots were processed.
Laubacher held a 10.8 percentage point advantage in Douglas County, and she led by margins of 17.2 and 22.3 points in the Larimer and Arapahoe metropolitan areas.
The Denver Post editorial argues that Colorado is likely sending one Republican to Congress and seven Democrats, and it says voters helped unseat Boebert in the 4th Congressional District while returning only Rep. Jeff Hurd out of Mesa County.
Laubacher served in the U.S. Navy for 34 years, and the editorial calls for Congress to begin reclaiming authority from the executive branch, including passing sanctions on Russia and a War Powers resolution to end the War in Iran.