June 05, 2024 01:43 PM UTC

Yes, Boebert Appears To Be Owning The CO-04 Primary

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• by: Colorado Pols

With the June 25th Republican primary in deep-red CO-04 rapidly approaching, there’s been a shortage of polling of the primary field, with the principal survey most of us have relied upon from Kaplan Strategies in February showing carpetbagger Rep. Lauren Boebert holding a small plurality of support with a hard ceiling in the lower 30s–and the gaggle of also-ran candidates including former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg with a long list of endorsements polling distantly behind.

Last night, 9NEWS reported on a new poll from Kaplan that shows Boebert increasingly in command of the race, though still short of 50%:

Kaplan Strategies polled 343 likely GOP primary voters in the district that includes Douglas County, Loveland, and the Eastern Plains. Of those polled, 40% said they would vote for Boebert on primary election day, June 25.

All of Boebert’s opponents are polling at or below 5%, [Pols emphasis] right around the ±4.3% margin of error. In an analysis done by the pollsters, they attribute the numbers to Boebert’s overwhelming name recognition, with little for her Republican rivals. Her most known opponent, Lynch, has a favorability rating of 9%-10%, with 46% of voters not recognizing him, Kaplan found. Yu, her least known opponent, was not recognized by 63% of voters.

Pollsters found Boebert’s favorability has improved significantly since February. She now has a 47% favorable rating, up from a previous negative rating, Kaplan Strategies found. Only 3% of those polled said they had never heard of her.

While there remain a very large number of undecided voters in these results, what we can see is that Boebert is the only candidate making inroads with undecided voters while the field of also-rans has totally failed to make an impression. From the moment Boebert announced her district switch while (at the time) circling the drain in the wake of the Beetlebert debacle, the other candidates had a simple choice: either rise to the challenge and become a viable alternative to Boebert, or get out of the race to allow such a candidate to emerge. None of them were able to accomplish the former and all were too arrogant to consider the latter, and as a result the candidate expected to lead the race before Boebert’s entry, Jerry Sonnenberg, is just another single-digit loser in the making.

If Boebert prevails on June 25th as this poll predicts, it raises questions about the direction of Colorado Republicans every bit as serious as those raised by the state party’s unprecedented turn under chairman Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Williams and his MAGA allies. Boebert will be much safer to manage her trademark amalgamation of personal and professional embarrassment in this safer district, greasing the skids of the daily news grind with her endless publicity-seeking shock jockery–tactics she learned from Donald Trump himself and has exhaustingly employed for years. Boebert’s political survival means even more collateral damage for Republicans in future elections. But for Boebert personally, June 25th is the of vindication by electoral verdict that Trump is counting on to rehabilitate himself with on November 5th.

Who’s going to tell Boebert to change course now? One of the most desperate political gambits in Colorado political history looks about to succeed.