一滴滴细细的汗珠从贝托·奥鲁克的太阳穴滑下脸颊。这是2019年科罗拉多州奥罗拉一个温暖、阳光明媚的下午，当时的总统候选人站在市政厅的台阶上与选民谈论枪支管制。随着人群分享关于美国枪支文化状况的故事和担忧，奥洛克承诺采取积极的枪支管制措施。然后，前排一位身材娇小的女士拿到了话筒。
她说:“我叫劳伦，今天我从科罗拉多州的来福开车来这里与你们交谈。她继续说道，“我是听了你的演讲并听到你说‘是的，我们要拿走你的AR-15和AK-47’的持枪美国人之一。”奥罗克给出的回答是就在几天前的一场民主党总统辩论中。
人群中的一些人开始欢呼并大喊“耶!，“但奥鲁克要求他们“要尊重。”突然，这位女士似乎有了更大的信心:“好吧，我在这里说，‘当然不是。你不是。’"
当然，奥鲁克没有赢得选举，但这位名叫劳伦·博伯特(Lauren Boebert)的32岁女子赢得了选举。当时，Boebert还没有竞选国会议员。但在她与奥鲁克的对抗在右翼中成为半病毒式传播后，她获得了一个在福克斯新闻频道露面和《国家评论》的头条伯伯特决定在她的家乡科罗拉多州第三选区挑战现任共和党众议员斯科特·蒂普顿。2020年6月30日，她在共和党初选中以55%比45%的优势获胜，这是本轮最大的冲击之一。
奥洛克开启了伯特的政治生涯，这一时刻非常引人注目，因为它抓住了选民在第一次竞选中对这位女议员的喜爱。她很有胆识，是一个没有政治经验的小企业主，对她所在社区的人们正在谈论的问题很敏感。但是今天，两个学期下来，她以前的许多支持者认为她已经成为华盛顿的圈内人，与该地区脱节，她的大胆看起来更像是无礼。
现在，之后差点失去她的座位在2022年幸存下来客观地可怕的她变老了个人生活伯伯特群岛在州的另一边重新开始。她在科罗拉多州东部平原的第四国会选区参选，希望在该州最保守的选区重新点燃早期的吸引力——如果她能在6月的初选中赢得足够多的选民，只要她想，她几乎就能保证在国会获得一个席位。有很多事情对她有利——知名度、拥挤的初选和健康的战争基金——但这些足以让伯特获得她还是《来福枪》中的劳伦时获得的那种支持吗?
当Boebert在2019年底第一次决定竞选公职时，许多人都怀疑一个鲜为人知的特朗普千禧一代有多大机会击败五届现任总统。
尽管Boebert因拥有Shooters Grill而享有一定的知名度，这家以枪支为主题的餐厅吸引了全国媒体的关注在那里，服务员公开携带枪支——她仍然处于劣势。蒂普顿自2011年以来一直在国会代表该地区，在此之前是州议会的成员。伯特没有政治经验，更没有钱——更糟糕的是，前总统唐纳德·特朗普支持蒂普顿.
但Boebert致力于竞选活动，她有着魅力十足的演讲风格和令人共鸣的信息。曾为博伯特2020年竞选工作的共和党政治策略师劳拉·卡诺(Laura Carno)表示，这位候选人有着顽强的职业道德:她走访了每个县，并在一天内多次开车到该地区进行首尾相连的旅行(行程超过8小时)。
卡诺说:“在我的职业生涯中，我参加过许多竞选活动，我从未见过一位候选人像她这样努力工作。
持枪权是她的竞选活动的首要议题，因为这是选民们关心的问题——该州已经召回了两名州参议员就在几年前过于看好枪支管制，以及2020年的黑人的命也是命抗议将枪支暴力纳入全国性话题。凯文·麦卡尼(Kevin McCarney)说，最终，伯特的一些明显弱点实际上增加了她的吸引力。凯文·麦卡尼当时是第三区人口第二多的县梅萨县的共和党主席。“她作为一个不是“一个政治家，在那个时候这是一个重要的信息，尤其是在特朗普发生了什么之后，”麦卡尼说。她绝对是个特朗普女孩。"
但是四年后很多事情都会改变。甚至在她到达国会山之前，Boebert就开始成为全国头条新闻，而且不一定是因为她的选民喜欢的原因。她评论说希望QAnon阴谋论是真的与国会警察的争执她的格洛克手枪触发了金属探测器那次她打电话给众议员伊尔汉·奥马尔“圣战小组”的成员(她后来道歉了对于备注)。
称她为有争议的人物是一种轻描淡写的说法。她是一群极右翼阻挠者在国会——主要来自自由核心小组——他们的目标似乎是让其他政客的日子更难过，即使是他们自己的政党。她是选举否认者谁有发表了评论支持基督教民族主义，并发起或支持各种法案弹劾总统乔·拜登从阿富汗撤军的决议剥夺胜利变性游泳运动员。
如同我以前写过科罗拉多州的第三选区虽然是可靠的红色选区，但看起来不像博伯特的强硬派共和党同僚所代表的其他选区:它的白人较少，福音派基督徒较少，共和党人较少。虽然她仍然拥有一群忠实的粉丝，但每个人头条新闻特技逐渐消失她在家乡的受欢迎程度。这并不是说西坡的选民总是不赞成她的行为(尽管有些人确实不赞成)，而是相反，他们觉得这证明她对自己的形象和名气比对代表她的选民更感兴趣。
卡诺说:“人们认为她已经——我要用(我听别人说过的)语言——“离开了好莱坞”，因为他们觉得这更多的是关于她和她的名气，而不是代表这个地区。”这反映在第三选区的投票由全球战略集团于去年春天进行。当被问及对她的描述是否“更注重引起关注而不是完成工作”时，55%的选民说对她的描述是“很好”或“非常好”，44%的人说她“让科罗拉多州难堪”。
在2022年中期选举中，她受到了损害，当时她在几百票之内输给了民主党候选人亚当·弗里希。从那以后，事情变得越来越糟，因为伯特的个人生活开始变得混乱。她和她的丈夫开始了一场混乱的离婚;她被音乐剧《甜蜜蜜》踢出演出，原因是大声喧哗，挑逗她的约会对象;她18岁的儿子被捕并受到指控多项重罪。
年底，伯特制作了关于脸书的公告。她不会在第三选区竞选连任，她声称“旨在摧毁我个人的黑暗资金”可能会“偷走”席位(她在六位数的民主党攻击广告活动被她吊打)。相反，她把家搬到了该州第四选区温莎，当时的众议员肯·巴克最近宣布他将从那里退休。除了担心留在第三选区可能会给民主党人带来翻转席位的机会(2020年特朗普获得了6个百分点)，博伯特还将此举视为她和她的儿子们在经历了如此动荡的一年后的“新开始”。
“我犯了自己的个人错误，已经承认并为此道歉，”Boebert说。“这一直是令人谦卑和具有挑战性的，但它也给了我视角，帮助我成长。”
但是，尽管第四选区(2020年以16个百分点的优势支持特朗普)在大选中对几乎所有共和党人来说都是一个安全的席位，但博伯特仍然需要在6月25日通过一场艰难的初选才能高枕无忧。当然，她开始时的知名度比她在2020年新贵竞选中的知名度高，但鉴于所有关于她的负面头条新闻，这未必是一件好事。在华盛顿连任两届后，她再也不能依靠自己是政治局外人，也不能声称自己与该地区有着深厚的联系。不，这个深红区一直对这位国会女议员持怀疑态度，至少一开始是这样。
“一月份没有为她铺红地毯，”博伯特竞选活动的发言人德鲁·塞克斯顿说。的确，二月份对第四选区可能的共和党选民的民意调查发现42%的人对伯特没有好感，多于38%的人对他有好感。49%的人说他们不确定会在初选中投票给谁，63%的人说不会是博伯特。
还有其他五名候选人，包括一些现任或前任官员，在第四选区争夺提名——这是严肃的政客通常不敢对现任官员做的事情。例如，前州参议员杰里·索南伯格在州议会中也代表了该地区的一部分。索南伯格得到了三位前参议员——科里·加德纳、韦恩·艾拉德和汉克·布朗——的支持，他在该地区当过几十年的农场主和牧场主，在当地有很多忠实的支持者。还有黛博拉·弗洛拉(Deborah Flora)，她曾是科罗拉多州小姐和当地电台脱口秀主持人，是社区中著名的共和党人。
但是也有很多对Boebert有利的因素。与四年前的第一次初选不同，伯伯特现在有了一个巨大的筹资优势她筹集了近350万美元，而第二高的筹款人弗洛拉筹集了35.6万美元。这一次，她得到了特朗普的支持.
根据塞克斯顿的说法，Boebert还保持了她在第一次竞选中的努力工作道德;今年她已经在该地区进行了50次竞选活动。塞克斯顿在一封电子邮件中写道:“复活节前的第30个周六，她从温莎开车到埃尔伯特县参加他们的县议会，继续开车到巴卡县参加他们的林肯日晚宴，回到克劳利县参加他们的肉类晚宴，然后回家带她的孩子们参加尤马县支持者的复活节仪式。”“总的来说，周末开车大约要行驶1，000英里。“
事实上，她2020年在西坡点燃的火花似乎正在该州的另一边重新点燃。在科罗拉多州，候选人有两种方式参加初选:要么收集签名，要么在地区大会(当地政党组织者和支持者的会议)上获得至少30%的选票。Boebert两者都做到了，她甚至4月第四届地区议会上的头条新闻。现在，这位煽动性的国会女议员距离可能成为终身安全屋的席位只差一个第一名。
Don’t write off Lauren Boebert just yet
A thin trickle of sweat slid from Beto O'Rourke's temple down his cheek. It was a warm, sunny afternoon in 2019 in Aurora, Colorado, and the then-presidential candidate stood on the steps of city halltalking to voters about gun control. As the crowd shared stories and fears about the state of gun culture in the U.S., O'Rourke pledged to pursue aggressive gun control measures. Then a petite woman in the front row was handed the mic.
"My name is Lauren and I drove down here from Rifle, Colorado, to speak with you today," she said. "I was one of the gun-owning Americans that heard your speech and heard what you had to say regarding, 'Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15s and your AK-47s,'" she continued, referring toa response O'Rourke had givenduring a Democratic presidential debate just days earlier.
Some in the crowd began to cheer and shout "Hell yeah!," but O'Rourke asked them to "be respectful." Suddenly, the woman seemed to tap into deeper confidence: "Well, I am here to say, 'Hell no. You're not.'"
O'Rourke, of course, did not go on to win his election, but the woman — a 32-year-old, gun-themed restaurant owner named Lauren Boebert — did. At the time, Boebert was not yet running for Congress. But after her confrontation with O'Rourke went semi-viral among the right, landing her anappearance on Fox Newsandheadlines in the National Review, Boebert decided to challenge incumbent Republican Rep. Scott Tipton in her home district, Colorado's 3rd. Her 55-percent-to-45-percent victory in the Republican primary on June 30, 2020, was one of the biggest shocks of the cycle.
The moment with O'Rourke that launched Boebert's political career is striking because it captures so much of what voters liked about the congresswoman during that first campaign. She was ballsy, a small business owner with no political experience, and attuned to the issues that people in her community were talking about. But today, two terms in,many of her former supporters feelshe's become a D.C. insider who's out of touch with the district and whose ballsiness looks more like impertinence.
Now, afternearly losing her seatin 2022 and surviving anobjectivelyawfulyear in herpersonal life, Boebert isstarting over on the other side of the state. Running in the 4th Congressional District in Colorado's Eastern Plains, she's hoping to reignite some of that early appeal in the state's most conservative district — where, if she can win over enough voters in the June primary, she'll be virtually guaranteed a seat in Congress as long as she wants it. There are a number of things working in her favor — name recognition, a crowded primary and a healthy war chest — but will they be enough for Boebert to inspire the same kind of support she had when she was just Lauren from Rifle?
When Boebert first decided to run for office in late 2019, many doubted that a little-known, Trumpy millennial stood much of a chance against a five-term incumbent.
Though Boebert enjoyed some name recognition from owning Shooters Grill — a gun-themed restaurant thatattracted national media attention, where servers openly carried firearms — she was still at a disadvantage. Tipton had represented the district in Congress since 2011 and was a member of the state legislature before that. Boebert had no political experience, even less money — and, to top it all off,former President Donald Trump had endorsed Tipton.
But Boebert was dedicated to hitting the campaign trail, and she had a charismatic speaking style and a message that resonated. Laura Carno, a Republican political strategist who worked on Boebert's 2020 campaign, said the candidate had a tenacious work ethic: She visited every county, and drove the district end-to-end (a more than eight-hour excursion) in a single day multiple times.
"I've worked on a number of campaigns in my career, and I've never seen a candidate work as hard as she did," Carno said.
Gun rights were at the forefront of her campaign, as they were on voters' minds — the state had recalled two state senatorsjust a few years priorfor being too bullish on gun control, and Black Lives Matter protests in 2020thrust gun violence into the national conversation. In the end, some of Boebert's perceived weaknesses actually added to her appeal, according to Kevin McCarney, who was then the GOP chair for Mesa County, the 3rd District's second-most populous county. "She resonated as someone whowasn'ta politician, which was a big message at that point in time, especially after what happened with Trump," McCarney said. "And she was definitely a Trump girl."
But a lot can change in four years. Even before she got to Capitol Hill, Boebert began making national headlines, and not necessarily for reasons her constituents liked. There was her comment abouthoping the QAnon conspiracy theory was real, the dispute with Capitol police overher Glock setting off metal detectors, the time she called fellow Rep. Ilhan Omara member of the "jihad squad"(shelater apologizedfor the remark).
To call her a controversial figure would be an understatement. She's part of a cohort offar-right obstructionistsin Congress — largely from the Freedom Caucus — whose goal seems to be to make life harder for other politicians,even from their own party. She'san election denierwho hasmade commentssupportive of Christian nationalism and has sponsored or supported bills ranging fromimpeaching President Joe Bidenfor withdrawing from Afghanistan to a resolution that sought tostrip a winfrom a transgender swimmer.
AsI've written before, Colorado's 3rd District, though reliably red, doesn't look like other districts represented by Boebert's fellow hardline Republicans: It's less white, less evangelical Christian and less Republican. While she still maintained a coterie of devoted fans, eachheadline-grabbingstuntchipped awayat her popularity back home. It wasn't that voters on the Western Slope always disapproved of her behavior (though some certainly did), but instead, they felt that it was evidence she was more interested in her own image and celebrity than in representing her constituents.
"People thought that she had — I'm gonna use the language [I've heard others use] —'gone Hollywood,' because they felt like it was more about her and her fame, as opposed to representing the district," said Carno. This was reflected ina poll of the 3rd Districtconducted last spring by Global Strategy Group. When asked if the description "more focused on getting attention than getting things done," matched Boebert, 55 percent of voters said that it described her "well" or "very well," and 44 percent called her "an embarrassment to Colorado."
The damage caught up to her in the 2022 midterms, when she came within a few hundred votes of losing her seat to Democratic candidate Adam Frisch. Things only got worse from there as Boebert's personal life began to unravel. She and her husbandembarked on a messy divorce; she was kicked out of a performance of "Beetlejuice," the musical, forbeing loud, vaping and groping her date; and her 18-year-old son wasarrested and chargedwith multiple felonies.
At the end of the year, Boebert madean announcement on Facebook. She wouldn't be running for reelection in the 3rd District, where she claimed "dark money that is directed at destroying me personally" could "steal" the seat (her spin on thesix-figure Democratic attack ad campaignbeing lobbed against her). Instead, she moved her family to Windsor, in the state's 4th District, from which then-Rep. Ken Buck had recently announced he would be retiring. Along with concerns that staying in the 3rd District could give Democrats the opportunity to flip the seat (which went for Trump by 6 percentage points in 2020), Boebert framed the move as a "fresh start" for her and her sons after such a tumultuous year.
"I've made my own personal mistakes and have owned up and apologized for them," Boebert said. "It's been humbling and challenging, but it's also given me perspective and helped me grow."
But while the 4th District (which went for Trump by 16 points in 2020) is a safe seat for just about any Republican in the general election, Boebert still needs to get through a tough primary on June 25 before she can rest easy. Sure, she's started out with more name recognition than she did in her upstart 2020 campaign, but given all the negative headlines about her, that isn't necessarily a good thing. And she can no longer fall back on being a political outsider after two terms in D.C. or claim to be deeply connected to the district. No, this deep-red district has been skeptical of the congresswoman, at least to start.
"The red carpet was not rolled out for her in January," said Drew Sexton, a spokesperson for Boebert's campaign. Indeed,a February poll of likely Republican voters in the 4th Districtfound 42 percent had an unfavorable view of Boebert, more than the 38 percent who had a favorable view. And of the 49 percent who said they weren't certain who they would vote for in the primary, 63 percent said it wouldn't be Boebert.
There are also five other candidates, including some current or former officeholders, vying for the nomination in the 4th District — something serious politicians typically don't dare to do against an incumbent. For instance, there's former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, who also represented part of the region in the state House. Sonnenberg has been endorsed by three former senators — Cory Gardner, Wayne Allard and Hank Brown — and has plenty of local bona fides, having worked as a farmer and rancher in the region for decades. There's also Deborah Flora, a former Miss Colorado and local talk radio host who is a well-known Republican voice in the community.
But there's a lot working in Boebert's favor too. Unlike that first primary four years ago, Boebert now has ahuge fundraising advantage, by a factor of 10: She's raked in close to $3.5 million compared to the $356,000 raised by the next-highest fundraiser, Flora. And this time around,she's the one with Trump's endorsement.
According to Sexton, Boebert has also held onto her hard work ethic from her first campaign; she has made 50 campaign appearances across the district already this year. "Saturday the 30th before Easter, she drove from Windsor to Elbert County for their County Assembly, kept driving to Baca County for their Lincoln Day Dinner, back up to Crowley County for their Meat-In Dinner, and then returned home to take her boys to Easter service with supporters in Yuma County," Sexton wrote in an email. "All told, that's about 1,000 miles of driving for the weekend."
Indeed, the spark she ignited on the Western Slope in 2020 seems to be rekindling on the other side of the state. In Colorado, there are two ways for candidates to get on the ballot for a primary election: either by collecting signatures or earning at least 30 percent of the vote at the district assembly (a meeting of local party organizers and devotees). Boebert managed to do both, and she even tooktop billing at the 4th District assembly in April. Now, the firebrand congresswoman is just one more first-place finish away from what is probably a safe House seat for life.
