'She's in love with the swamp': Boebert's seat flip dismays even her allies

Lauren Boebert’s shock decision to drop her congressional seat and fight for another on the other side of Colorado was blasted by an old friend Wednesday.

“It looks like she’s so in love with the D.C. swamp that she will do whatever it takes to stay there,” said Greg Brophy, a former Republican state lawmaker who has called Boebert a friend for years, told the Denver Post.

“Sometimes your friends do things that disappoint you.”

Boebert announced last week that she was abandoning Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, which she narrowly won in 2022 and in which she was facing a tough fight for 2024, and was switching to the much more conservative 4th district that was being vacated by Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO).

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“Her desire to maintain some semblance of power and enjoyment of a prominent media profile motivated her to seek an alternative path in the face of a very likely defeat in CD3,” said Sandra Hagen Solin, a Colorado-based Republican strategist who has long worked with the congresswoman.

She called it “both savvy and desperate.”

Another Republican candidate for the seat, Richard Holtorf, said Boebert was kidding herself if she thought she could just walk into the region and win.

“She doesn’t even know all the counties in the district,” he said. “She doesn’t know the district. She’s just trying to keep that job in D.C.”

“She’s running from a fight on the Western Slope, and she’s running into a bigger gunfight on the Eastern Plains.”

Last week, Boebert was also attacked by her own party's state chair, Dave Williams, who said she was, “jeopardizing our ability to retain Congressional District 3 as well as our slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.