Boebert loses CD-4: Colorado’s delegation goes 7-1 Democrat

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

Colorado’s congressional delegation will go from four Republicans to one.

The Associated Press called CD-4 for Eileen Laubacher at 12:53 p.m. Friday, with an estimated 99% of the vote counted. It was the last of the state’s eight congressional races to be called.

AP has now called all eight. Seven went to Democrats. Jeff Hurd in CD-3 is the only Republican among the winners.

Lauren Boebert carried CD-4 by 51,964 votes two years ago, a margin of 11.6 points in the state’s certified returns. She lost it to a retired Navy rear admiral.

In the secretary of state’s unofficial returns, last updated at 4:50 p.m. Friday, Laubacher had 187,745 votes to Boebert’s 184,220. That is 48.80% to 47.89%, a margin of 3,525. Libertarian Douglas Mangeris had 3.31%, with 384,707 ballots counted in the race.

The current vote totals and percentages in this piece come from that posting.

The count is not complete. Clerks were still posting results Friday afternoon.

Under state law, a recount is required when the gap is 0.5% or less of the highest vote cast in the contest. Here that threshold is 938 votes, and the margin is more than three times it.

The pipeline

Ten months before the election, the president of her own party vetoed her bill to finish a pipeline meant to carry drinking water to rural communities in southeastern Colorado, including counties in her district.

He said it shifted too much of a local project’s cost onto federal taxpayers. She said she hoped it was not political retaliation for “calling out corruption and demanding accountability.”

Boebert sponsored the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, H.R. 131. The bill contained no appropriation.

It would have let water users repay over as long as 75 years on a showing of financial hardship, a 25-year extension, and would have charged half the Treasury interest rate.

President Donald Trump vetoed it on Dec. 29, 2025. His veto message said the bill would continue “the failed policies of the past by forcing Federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs” of a local water project. It said the conduit’s total costs were estimated at $1.3 billion.

The House took up an override on Jan. 8, 2026, and fell short, 248-177. Thirty-five Republicans voted to override.

All eight Colorado members voted to override, four Republicans and four Democrats, the roll call shows. Boebert, Jeff Crank, Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd were four of those 35.

Boebert blamed fear.

“Folks are afraid of getting a mean tweet or attacked,” she said. “This was purely political and it’s very unfortunate.”

The Epstein petition

On Sept. 2, 2025, Boebert signed the discharge petition to force a House vote releasing the Justice Department’s Epstein files. She was one of four Republicans among its 218 signers, and the only Colorado Republican to sign.

On Nov. 12, 2025, with the petition one signature from the 218 it needed, she went to the White House and met with administration officials about her support for it. She kept it on.

Trump had posted earlier in the day that Republicans backing the petition were falling into a trap. “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap,” he wrote.

Boebert said she felt no pressure.

“I love the White House,” she told CPR News. “Adults are allowed to have conversations.” She said she wanted to honor what she called the president’s legacy of transparency.

“Weak minded,” then “complete and total”

In May 2026, hours after Boebert campaigned with Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Trump asked publicly for a challenger.

“Is anyone interested in running against Weak Minded Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District?” he wrote on Truth Social. He called Massie the worst Republican congressman in the country’s history and said “anybody who can be that dumb deserves a good Primary fight!”

“Even though I long ago endorsed Boebert, if the right person came along,” he wrote, it would be “my Honor to withdraw that Endorsement, and endorse a good and proper alternative.”

“Yes, I saw the President’s post. No, I’m not mad or offended,” Boebert wrote on X. She said she “knew the risks” of standing by Massie.

Massie told Fox News the filing deadline had already passed, so no challenger could have gotten on the ballot.

None did. She ran unopposed in the primary.

Four days before the election, Trump endorsed her again.

“Lauren Boebert has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election,” he wrote, adding that she would never let voters down.

Who takes the seat

Laubacher served 34 years in the Navy. She graduated from the Naval Academy in 1990.

She spent more than seven years as an active-duty intelligence officer, then moved to the Navy Reserve. She deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. She was promoted to rear admiral in 2018.

From 2019 to 2022 she was the senior defense official and defense attaché in New Delhi. After that she joined the National Security Council as senior director for South Asia. She retired in October 2024.

Her father retired from the Navy after 37 years. Her grandfather was a frogman in World War II.

Laubacher’s campaign raised $13.7 million through Oct. 14, the last reporting period before the election. Boebert’s raised $1.2 million. Those totals cover the candidates’ own committees, not outside spending.

Boebert has objected to the money in the race. “There’s a lot of money dumped on my head, and I mean, I refuse to spend money like that again,” she told reporters Wednesday. She said she had hoped to “prove that seats just can’t be bought.”

Laubacher declared victory on Monday, four days before the AP call, after CNN projected the race. She was at the Capitol that day for new member orientation. Boebert was there too.

“I’m honored by the trust the people of Colorado’s 4th District have placed in me,” she said in a statement. “This campaign was never about party labels. It was about putting people first.”

“This victory is historic. But making history means nothing if we don’t make a difference,” she said.

She said she would lower costs, protect health care, strengthen rural communities, take on corruption in both parties and hold Washington accountable.

Where it stands

Boebert has not conceded as of Friday afternoon.

“The votes aren’t in,” she told reporters outside the Capitol on Wednesday. “So why would I concede if the votes aren’t all in?”

She also said she does not plan to run again in 2028 if Laubacher wins.

Her campaign had made the same argument in a fundraising email on Monday. “Make no mistake, this race is NOT over!” she said. “Our legal team expects a recount will happen one way or another, and we’re preparing for it NOW.”

Her campaign worked with Republican groups to urge district Republicans to cure their ballots before Thursday’s deadline.

Her campaign released a statement Monday from Scott Gessler, her lawyer and a former Republican secretary of state.

“Every vote should be counted, and every vote should matter,” he said. “We expect that counties will be releasing final counts on Nov. 13.”

Cured ballots and military and overseas ballots had to reach county clerks by 11:59 p.m. Thursday. Military and overseas ballots also had to be submitted by 7 p.m. mountain time on Election Day.

Totals from those ballots began posting Friday, both before and after the AP call.

A losing candidate is among the interested parties who may request a recount at their own expense when one is not required. The request has to be notarized and, for a congressional race, filed with the secretary of state. It cannot be filed sooner than 10 days after the election or later than 22 days after it, and it may be made only once.

For this election, that window opened Friday and closes Nov. 25.

A recount can happen only after the county canvass boards certify the original count. Each board has until the 22nd day after the election, which is also Nov. 25, to finish that work.