Lauren Boebert Loses Re-election to Navy Veteran Eileen Laubacher, NBC Projects

Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican who spent six years in Congress and drew national attention for repeated controversies, has lost her bid for re-election, NBC News projects. Her Democratic challenger, Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral, was the winner.

The loss ends a run that began with an upset of a sitting congressman and later turned into a public break with President Donald Trump, according to NBC News.

Who beat Boebert

NBC News describes Laubacher as an Afghanistan war veteran who served on the National Security Council in the Biden administration. On election night, she told supporters that integrity, character and truth matter and that public service should be about helping others, The Colorado Sun reported.

Boebert had moved districts to improve her odds. She won re-election in Colorado’s 3rd District by just 546 votes in 2022, then switched to the much redder 4th Congressional District in 2024 and won more easily. NBC News said that move was not enough against a Democratic wave in these midterm elections that swept many Republican incumbents out of office.

After the race, Boebert said “There was a lot of money dumped on my head,” and she also blamed the Senate for failing to pass many Republican bills approved by the House.

How Boebert’s Washington career unfolded

2020: Boebert, a gun-rights activist who owned Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado, defeated Rep. Scott Tipton in the Republican primary and became a vocal defender of Trump in Washington.
2021: She apologized after a video emerged in which she suggested that Rep. Ilhan Omar was mistaken for a terrorist in a Capitol elevator. Omar said Boebert’s description of the two riding together never happened.
2022: At the State of the Union address, Boebert and then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene heckled President Joe Biden throughout his speech. The two later had a very public falling-out.
2023: Boebert and her date were escorted out of a performance of “Beetlejuice” in Denver after allegations of vaping, taking photos and other disruptive behavior.
November 2025: She was one of four Republicans who joined Democrats in signing a petition to force a vote on releasing the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files, against Trump’s wishes.
May 2026: After Trump vowed to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie for leading the Epstein files push, Boebert sided with Massie and campaigned with him.

The break with Trump

NBC News reported that Trump responded by criticizing Boebert with personal insults and threatening to withdraw his endorsement, though he never did. The report said their relationship had soured more recently, after years in which she was one of his most vocal defenders in Congress.

NBC News noted that Boebert was known on Capitol Hill more for controversies and clashes with fellow lawmakers than for legislative skill.

What this means for Colorado voters

The result changes who represents Boebert’s district, replacing a Republican incumbent with a Democrat who has a national security and military background. It is also one more seat in what NBC News described as a wave that cost the GOP many incumbents in these midterm elections. Further details on how the new member of Congress will approach the job were not disclosed.

Around Prague, based on reporting by NBC News, The Guardian, Fox News

Cover photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

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