Lauren Boebert 'seems to be done' as vote counting ends in her biggest county: expert

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) lost her best hope for a comeback when her strongest county finished counting votes, leaving most remaining ballots in areas her Democratic challenger is winning.

Weld County Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes, a Republican, told 9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark on Thursday that her office had finished counting votes in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, except for ballots with signature problems and ballots forwarded from other counties.

Democrat Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral, leads Boebert by 2,376 votes in the latest state results. With Weld done, the uncounted ballots are concentrated in counties Laubacher has carried, Clark reported.

That leaves Boebert trying to close the gap mostly with ballots from places that have favored her opponent.

“Boebert seems to be done,” election-tracking expert @umichvoter wrote on Thursday while sharing Clark’s report, noting that a “heavy chunk of the remaining vote is in bluer counties.”

“This is not a eulogy here,” Boebert told Clark in an interview on Wednesday afternoon, a day before Weld finished its count. “I’m still alive, and I’m still in this, and the race has not been called.”

The Associated Press had not called the race as of Thursday at the time of publication. Laubacher led by 2,513 votes earlier Thursday, Clark reported, so the latest update narrowed her lead slightly. It remains well above the roughly 880-vote margin that would trigger an automatic recount under Colorado law, according to the Coloradoan.

Weld mattered because no county gives Boebert a bigger lead. She leads there 20,074 votes to 13,572, a 6,502-vote edge, state results show.

“Far fewer CO4 votes than expected due to a significant undervote,” Clark wrote Thursday after talking with Koppes, a day after he found Boebert still hoping for a larger ballot drop from Weld.

An undervote is a ballot cast that leaves a race blank. David B. Wheeler, president of American Muckrakers, a political action committee that has focused on Boebert, wrote that Koppes told him about 2,500 of the roughly 7,500 district ballots her office said were still coming in left the House race blank.

By that account, the county that gives Boebert her biggest lead delivered about a third fewer House votes in its final batch than expected.

The ballots that did come in also favored her less, 57% to 36%, compared with 65% to 30% on Wednesday afternoon, Wheeler wrote.

“Boebert needs a 9.5-point margin on everything remaining,” Wheeler wrote, based on Thursday morning's count.

He estimated that about 90% of the roughly 26,500 uncounted ballots sit in Douglas, Larimer and Arapahoe counties, which Laubacher is carrying.

Boebert is trailing in the district she chose over her old, more competitive one.

She won reelection in the western Colorado 3rd District in 2022 by a margin so narrow it required a recount, then announced in late 2023 that she would run in the 4th, which leans even further Republican, the Coloradoan reported.

“Ironically, she is now an underdog to win in 2026, while her successor … is probably a favorite to hold on,” Geoffrey Skelley, chief elections analyst for Decision Desk HQ, wrote Thursday.

Boebert has also run behind other Republicans on her ballot, two years ago and again this week.

In 2024, she won the 4th District by about 11 points while President Donald Trump carried it by more than 18, The Washington Times reported.

“Boebert consistently underperforms other Rs on the ballot,” Clark wrote, noting that she was running two points behind the GOP’s U.S. Senate candidate in Douglas County.

Signature fixes and ballots from military and overseas voters are due by 11:59 p.m. Nov. 12, and counties finish tabulating Nov. 13, Wheeler wrote. That final count will settle whether Boebert keeps her seat.