Rep. Lauren Boebert, conservative firebrand from Colorado, loses her race for re-election

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., a conservative firebrand who was caught up in several headline-grabbing controversies during her six years in Congress, has been defeated by Democratic challenger Eileen Laubacher, NBC News projects.Laubacher is a retired Navy rear admiral and Afghanistan war veteran who served on the National Security Council in the Biden administration.“Integrity matters. Character matters. Truth matters, and public service should always be about what you can do for other people, not what you do for yourself,” Laubacher told supporters on election night, according to The Colorado Sun. “Those things were worth fighting for when we started.”Boebert, who won re-election in Colorado’s 3rd District by just 546 votes in 2022, shifted to the much redder 4th Congressional District in 2024 and won re-election more easily.But that shift proved no match for the anti-Trump blue tsunami that washed over the country in these midterm elections, sweeping her and many other GOP incumbents out of office. “There was a lot of money dumped on my head,” Boebert said after the election, while also blaming the Senate for failing to pass many House-approved Republican bills.Before her political career, Boebert was a gun-rights activist and owned Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado. She upset Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., in the GOP primary in 2020 and became a vocal defender of Donald Trump in Washington. But their relationship soured more recently. In November 2025, Boebert was one of four Republicans who joined Democrats in signing a discharge petition to force a vote to release the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files, against Trump’s will. When Trump vowed to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., for leading the Epstein files push, Boebert sided with Massie and campaigned with him this May. Trump lashed out, calling her “dumb” and “weak-minded,” and threatened to rescind his endorsement of her, though he never did.Boebert was known on Capitol Hill more for her controversies and clashes with fellow lawmakers than for legislative savvy.In 2021, she apologized after video emerged of her suggesting that fellow Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was mistaken for a terrorist in an elevator both were riding in the Capitol. Omar said Boebert’s description of the two riding an elevator never happened.At the State of the Union address in 2022, Boebert and then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., stood up and heckled President Joe Biden throughout his speech, including trying to start a “build the wall” chant. The two conservative women later had a very public falling-out, with Greene calling her colleague “a little b----” on the House floor. In 2023, Boebert and her date were escorted out of a performance of the “Beetlejuice” musical in Denver. They were alleged to have been vaping, taking photos and engaging in other disruptive behavior.