Lauren Boebert called a “carpetbagger” to her face at GOP debate

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) — arguably one of the most anti-LGBTQ+ members of Congress ‚ was called out as a “carpetbagger” at a GOP debate last night as she attempted to win the trust of voters in the new district she’s running in.

Boebert currently represents Colorado’s mountainous Third Congressional District, but she almost lost her reelection battle in 2022. Facing numerous scandals and the same Democratic challenger who almost beat her last time, she announced last month that she will run in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District in the east of the state, dominated by plains but much more conservative — and safer from Democratic challengers — than the Third.

Related: Lauren Boebert called out by local paper for knowing nothing about her new district

She’s switching districts but locals are mad she didn’t do her homework on her new district.

But now she has to run in that district’s crowded GOP primary election, and she’s not quite getting a warm welcome in her new home. At the Thursday debate, none of the eight other candidates on stage said that they would support her candidacy if they weren’t running. An informal straw poll put her in fifth place in the primary, despite her quasi-celebrity status.

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“Can you give the definition of ‘carpetbagger’ to me?” state Rep. Mike Lynch (R), one of the other Republicans in the contest, asked her on stage. A carpetbagger is a term that also refers to someone who tries to get elected in an area that they have no real connection with — it’s often applied to career politicians who are seen as selfish and unscrupulous.

Boebert tried to quell concerns about the fact that she switched districts to protect her career by saying that she had signed a lease for a home in her new district.

“I am here to earn your vote. This is not a coronation,” she said at the debate, according to Axios. “The crops may be different in Colorado’s Fourth District, but the values are not.”

She also brought up her family situation. She divorced her husband last year and is trying to portray her move as part of a larger life change, even though she has said in other interviews that she switched districts primarily for electoral reasons.

“My boys and I needed a fresh start,” she said.

Boebert announced in late December that she would not seek reelection in the Third and would instead run in the Fourth after the Fourth’s congressional representative, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), announced he wouldn’t seek reelection.

She explained on Steve Bannon’s conservative podcast earlier this month that too many people were donating to her Democratic challenger in the Third, so she just switched districts.

“It’s coming from Hollywood when you have Barbra Streisand coming in and donating to the Democrat, when you have Ryan Reynolds coming in and donating to the Democrat,” she said. “But we need a strong voice there and we have to shut down the Hollywood elites who are trying to buy my current district.”

But she has hardly been welcomed with open arms in the Fourth.

“Does she think we’re that stupid? Does she think we’re going to be fooled by this trickery?” state Rep. Richard Holtorf (R), another of Boebert’s opponents, asked. “Seat shopping isn’t something voters look kindly on.”

Boebert has made numerous anti-LGBTQ+ statements in her two terms in Congress, including using homophobic insults to attack Transporation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for taking care of his kids, telling drag performers to stay out of her district, and accusing transgender people of being terrorists.

She got a score of “0” on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard for her first term in Congress, showing her solid opposition to LGBTQ+ equality. She didn’t just vote against LGBTQ+ legislation; she led a press conference in front of Congress to stop the Equality Act – which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes in federal civil rights law – from passing in 2021 when Congress was voting on it. She claimed that the law would be used to take children away from their parents if the parents refused to give their kids access to gender-affirming care, something that wasn’t in the bill at all.

In 2022, a report from HRC noted that Boebert’s Twitter account was the third biggest source of anti-transgender misinformation on the social media platform, just after rightwing pundit James Lindsay and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

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