In Colorado, not everyone loves Lauren Boebert — but the people who do really do.
Garfield County Republican Doug Wight voted for Boebert in the past and would have voted for her again, had she remained in his district of CD3, he tells The Independent.
He has installed Trump banners, flags and a sign telling Democrats “YOU SUCK!!!” outside his small business, Gold Ring Pawn, in Silt – the town where the congresswoman and her ex-husband raised their sons. It’s the same town where police were called to a public row between Boebert and her ex last year.
“I like the fact that she is similar to and supportive of Donald Trump,” said 70-year-old Wight. “She’s loud and aggressive, like Trump, like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“Whether that’s effective in Washington DC, I don’t know. But she’s just not cut from the same political cloth as most arrogant, ignorant politicians are.
“Life in the big city, where you’re controlled and manipulated … is way different than living in the country, where we don’t like to be told what to do. So she definitely signifies or lives that lifestyle, as opposed to big city life.”
He particularly supported Boebert’s vocal dedication to upholding gun rights, the issue that’s “probably my number one reason for voting, period.”
“She just supports it,” he says of the Second Amendment. “She’s not going to compromise.”
Echoing the oft-expressed fear throughout much of the district that “they’re going to take your guns away eventually,” he added: “She does not compromise on that principle.”
Outside of Grand Junction’s popular breakfast spot, Sunrise Restaurant, on Tuesday, Republican voter Mark Undem had his completed ballots in the saddle bags of his motorcycle, ready to drop them off after the meal.
He and his friends, Doug Murphy and Duane Jessee, had all been impressed with Boebert.
“She’s got a lot of ‘mama bear’ blood,” Jessee told The Independent.
Undem wore a Second Amendment-themed shirt but did not mention Boebert’s gun rights platform.“She’s a Christian,” he said, instead. “She doesn’t mind speaking her mind.”
“She seems to have no fear, and I respect that. And she’s up against it; she’s in a liberal state. [More] power to her.”
“She knows the Lord,” his friend added. “Anybody that loves my Lord is going to do the best they can. They might make mistakes, but then they can do their best.”
In Boebert’s new district, she also had fans. Ken Zaring, a retiree in a baseball cap, stopped to talk on the second floor of the library in the small town of Parker. He said he was happy when Boebert moved to the district, and added that he thought she moved districts not to up her chances of winning but because the district is bigger so representing it “gives her more opportunities to show who she is.”
“She strikes me as one of those women who’s stout, who has backbone,” Zaring said. “You know, she runs her own business in an interesting part of the world.”
Not everyone felt the same way. A middle-aged woman with blonde hair in Parker asked that we don’t use her name, since she fears what others in the local area might say if she’s outspoken about her true feelings.
When in conversation about Boebert, she made her feelings clear: “She frightens me, whatever district she’s in.”
For Boebert’s opponents, there were also some reasons to stay positive even as she seemed poised for victory.
“I think this presents the first opportunity to flip Colorado totally blue,” a Democratic operative in the new district said, on condition on anonymity. “I think that’s the reality. I mean, she is deeply unpopular, even in this district, and the Republican Party’s kind of in a national civil war. They’re bashing each other.”
