Republican Representative Lauren Boebert is favored to defeat Democrat Trisha Calvarese in November's race for a U.S. House seat in Colorado's 4th Congressional District, although polling suggests the contest may be close.
Boebert, an ardent supporter of former President Donald Trump's MAGA movement, easily defeated her GOP challengers in Tuesday's primary election. The congresswoman is currently representing Colorado's 3rd Congressional District but decided to run in the more heavily Republican 4th District late last year.
Calvarese, a former civil servant, won a close Democratic primary over former U.S. Marine Ike McCorkle on Tuesday. She was also the Democratic candidate in Tuesday's special election to temporarily fill now-retired Congressman Ken Buck's seat until November. Calvarese lost that contest by over 20 points to Republican Greg Lopez, who is not running for the full term.
Previous results in Colorado's 4th District suggest that Boebert will be the heavy favorite in November as the Republican candidate. The district favored Trump by a 16-point margin over President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election while having also backed Trump by 23 points in 2016.
Buck, a Republican who resigned earlier this year after denouncing Trump's false claims of a "stolen" 2020 election, enjoyed a massive 24-point margin of victory over McCorkle in the 2022 midterm election.
However, polling has indicated that Republicans may be headed for a closer-than-expected contest in the general election with Boebert as their candidate.
A poll released in March by the Colorado Polling Institute suggests that Boebert is a deeply unpopular figure in her home state—62 percent of respondents had an "unfavorable" view of the congresswoman, with only 22 percent having a "favorable" view.
While polling for the general election has been limited, the surveys conducted so far suggest that Boebert could be facing a stiff challenge.
Last month, an internal poll conducted on behalf of the Calvarese campaign by Keating Research found that Boebert had a 10-point lead over Calvarese. However, the Democrat took the lead by 9 points when the same respondents were told "concerns about Boebert and positives for Calvarese."
Additionally, internal polling conducted on behalf of the McCorkle campaign by Gravis Marketing showed that the Democratic now-former candidate had a 14-point lead over Boebert as of late last month.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Boebert campaign via email on Wednesday.
In a statement following her victory on Tuesday night, Calvarese touted herself as "a champion for working families" and insisted that she would defeat Boebert and her "dysfunction" in November.
"Our win tonight shows that our District wants a representative who is a champion for working families, not the dysfunction Lauren Boebert has brought to Congress," Calvarese said. "She moved here because she thought she could win in this district, but that was before I got into this race."
"It's time to move forward and into a new chapter for Colorado and our country," she added. "Together, we're going to win this election in November to make sure Lauren Boebert stays far, far away from power in our CD4."
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Aila Slisco is a Newsweek night reporter based in New York. Her focus is on reporting national politics, where she ... Read more
