Laubacher, Retired Navy Admiral, Projected to Unseat Boebert in Colorado
Democrat Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral, is projected to defeat Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado's 4th Congressional District, ending the Trump ally's three terms in the House after a count that stayed close for days.
Democrat Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral, is projected to defeat Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado's 4th Congressional District, according to a projection issued on Monday, November 9, 2026. The Lauren Boebert results end the tenure of one of the House's most outspoken conservatives after three terms.
Laubacher led 48.77 percent to 47.92 percent when the race was projected. The seat flips from Republican to Democratic.
The count had stayed tight for days. By Friday morning, three days after the election, Laubacher led by 3,069 votes, or 0.81 percentage points, with more than 97 percent of the estimated vote tallied. The race had not yet been called.
Boebert's campaign attorney, Scott Gessler, alleged "unusual voting patterns" and anticipated a recount. He did not explain the allegation when asked by a Colorado news outlet.
How Laubacher won
Laubacher served more than three decades in the Navy. She focused her campaign on affordability issues and benefited from national headwinds against the Republican Party.
Boebert, 39, was first elected in 2020 after upsetting a fifth-term Republican incumbent in a primary. She became one of the most recognizable and polarizing faces of the party's MAGA wing. Former President Joe Biden, whom she heckled during his 2022 State of the Union address, once called her "one of the leaders of this extreme MAGA movement."
She had also frustrated two Republican House speakers, Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson.
A district change that did not hold
Boebert nearly lost in 2022. She beat Democrat Adam Frisch by only 546 votes in western Colorado's 3rd District. She then switched to the more heavily Republican 4th District and won in 2024 by more than 11 points.
This time, the move did not protect her.
President Donald Trump endorsed her days before the election. He praised her on Truth Social as a "MAGA Warrior, who has been with us from the very beginning."
Their relationship had been uneven. Earlier this year Boebert campaigned with Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, one of Trump's most vocal Republican critics in the House, in his primary. Trump called her "dumb" and "weak-minded" and threatened to withdraw his endorsement.
Last year she also joined a Democratic push to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files. She resisted a White House effort to sway her vote. Republican leaders had opposed the release, citing the potential disclosure of the names of Epstein's victims.
