Lauren Boebert Gets Warning Sign About Her Campaign

Colorado voters in Representative Lauren Boebert's new district are sending a warning sign to her campaign.

A new poll from Kaplan Strategies shared with Newsweek shows that almost half (46 percent) of likely GOP voters in Colorado's 4th Congressional district say they would not vote for a candidate who just moved to the district. At the same time, 22 percent said yes, and 33 percent were unsure.

The hesitation to vote for a Republican who is new to the district is ominous news for Boebert. The congresswoman switched to the solidly red 4th district late last year after facing a tough re-election bid in Colorado's 3rd Congressional district, which she currently represents.

Boebert narrowly won re-election in 2022 with just 546 votes after a surprisingly strong challenge from Democrat Adam Frisch. Since the midterms, the district has moved from Republican-leaning to a toss-up. The seat that Boebert is vying for in the 4th district is being vacated by Representative Ken Buck, who cited the unwillingness of some in his party to accept the results of the 2020 election for his retirement.

Although the recent poll is a troubling sign for Boebert, Doug Kaplan, president of Kaplan Strategies, told Newsweek it may not hold enough people back from voting for her. The survey found Boebert far ahead of the pack with 32 percent of the Republican vote, while her GOP challengers all sat in single digits. Colorado State Representative Mike Lynch is her closest competitor, with 7 percent support.

"Unless the party coalescences around one person, she will win," Kaplan said.

Newsweek reached out to Boebert's campaign via email for comment.

The issue for Boebert's campaign, then, is her disapproval rating, Kaplan said. More than 4 in 10 GOP voters said they had an unfavorable view of Boebert compared to 38 percent who had a favorable view. Separately, 45 percent of voters said she does not have good character and judgment.

"I have not seen [a] poll where the leading candidate has such unfavorables," Kaplan said.

Nearly half of voters in the district remain undecided, but it's unclear if Boebert could win those Republicans over. Among those who chose another candidate or said they were undecided, 67 percent said they were not considering voting for the congresswoman. Comparably, only 33 percent said they were.

Part of that reason could be due to the MAGA identity of the district. While the 4th District voted for former President Donald Trump by a nearly 20 percentage point margin in 2020—more than double the margin in her old district, 55 percent of voters in the survey said they did not identify as a "MAGA Republican."

"It's less of a MAGA district," Kaplan said, noting that pollsters typically see a 10 percentage point MAGA advantage, even in the primaries. Only 45 percent of respondents considered themselves "MAGA Republicans."

Still, 66 percent said they would vote for Trump in the GOP presidential primary, and 45 percent said they'd be more likely to vote for Boebert if the former president endorsed her.

The poll was conducted on February 24 among 558 registered likely voters in Colorado's 4th Congressional District. It has a margin of error of +/- 4.2 percent.