• Analysis
Lauren Boebert defeated in Colorado fourth district race by Eileen Laubacher
Lauren Boebert, the Trump-backed Maga Republican, was defeated in her bid for a fourth term in Colorado's fourth congressional district, losing to Democrat Eileen Laubacher by a margin of less than 1%, according to the Associated Press.
A narrow loss in a Republican stronghold
Lauren Boebert has been defeated after three terms in Congress, with the Associated Press reporting that the conservative Republican lost to Democrat Eileen Laubacher by less than 1%. The Colorado election result came in the fourth congressional district, which spans the state's eastern plains, counts among its most conservative seats and has long been a Republican stronghold.
Who is Eileen Laubacher
Laubacher is a retired two-star navy rear admiral who was deployed to Afghanistan and later worked on the national security council under the Biden administration. She centered her campaign on decades of military and national security service, though she registered as a Democrat only in 2025, telling Boebert in a debate that the Republican party had become "nearly unrecognizable".
After the win, Laubacher addressed both sides of the electorate.
I'm honored by the trust the people of Colorado's fourth district have placed in me. This campaign was never about party labels.
She told those who voted for her that she would strive to make them proud, and promised those who did not that she would fight just as hard for them. Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, congratulated her and declared: "Lauren Boebert's sideshow is over."
The district-switching dispute
Both candidates moved into the fourth district in recent years. Boebert accused Laubacher of moving there and changing parties in order to run for Congress, while Boebert's own 2024 move to the district drew questions, coming after she barely eked out a win in the third district's previous election. She said she relocated because of "dark money" from Hollywood donors, naming Barbra Streisand and Ryan Reynolds as contributing to the Democrat in district three.
It shows you that Hollywood is trying to buy their way into Congress.
Three terms of controversy
Boebert's time in Congress was marked by repeated controversies:
- •She decried the 2020 presidential election as rigged and demanded to carry a handgun on the House floor.
- •She was accused of helping incite the January 6 insurrection by tweeting "Today is 1776" the morning of the Capitol riots, and later condemned the attack.
- •In 2023 she went viral after being filmed groping her date, vaping and being escorted out of a Beetlejuice musical in Denver. She first joked she would "plead guilty to laughing and singing too loud", but later publicly apologized and divorced her husband, who was not her date.
- •Weeks before the election she faced an ethics complaint alleging sexual relationships with three staffers and payment to one to stay silent - allegations she denied and called "politically motivated".
The gun rights advocate, born-again Christian and one-time QAnon fan also split with Trump, who has called her a "carpetbagger" and "dumb". Trump's first veto of his second term struck down a Boebert-sponsored bill that would have funded a drinking water project in the fourth district, despite passing the House and Senate unanimously.
Nothing says 'America First' like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in south-east Colorado.
She said the veto affected people who had voted for Trump in all three elections, and that if the administration wanted its legacy to be blocking projects delivering water to rural Americans, "that's on them". Despite her Maga loyalism, Boebert was among the most vocal members of Congress calling for release of the Epstein files, even after the White House tried to persuade her to remove her name from a discharge petition for the documents. Her three terms now end with the defeat, and DelBene has declared her "sideshow" over.
