April 14, 2021 12:45 PM UTC

Boebert Draws Relatively Sane Republican Challenger

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• by: Colorado Pols

Noted in yesterday’s Unaffiliated newsletter from the Colorado Sun:

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Garfield County, now has a Republican primary challenger for 2022. Marina Zimmerman, a crane operator from southwest Colorado, filed paperwork with the FEC on Friday to officially launch her bid.

Marina Zimmerman, a 2008 graduate of Fort Lewis College in Durango, is as unknown to us as Rep. Lauren Boebert herself was before Boebert heckled Beto O’Rourke about guns at an Aurora, Colorado town hall in 2019. But a look at Zimmerman’s Twitter feed reveals she is not a fan of the far-right Class of 2020 Republican members of Congress including Boebert and fellow “Q-some Twosome” Marjorie Taylor Greene–and Zimmerman seems to agree that the “QAnon” conspiracy theory is harming the Republican Party.

And on the one issue Boebert has planted her flag on more than all the others combined, it looks like Marina Zimmerman is on the right message for a Republican primary:

I stand for the United States Constitution and the freedom of the American people. pic.twitter.com/abVYQhiV50

— Marina Zimmerman for Congress (@Marina4Colorado) April 14, 2021

And there you have it, folks–the first GOP challenger throwing her hat in the ring to take on Boebert in 2022. Of course, there are plenty of variables yet to be determined that will dictate the seriousness of Zimmerman’s campaign. As we’ve said many times as the popular anger over Boebert’s excesses has grown, the upcoming redistricting process will determine in large part who gets the decisive opportunity to take on Boebert. If the district is drawn at all competitive against a Democratic challenger, expect them to make an all-out effort. But if Boebert’s district is drawn with a significant Republican advantage, the task of replacing Boebert with competent representation for whoever ends up drawn into her district will fall to her own party.

In that event, it’s a good bet that higher profile Republicans will step up. In the meantime, as it did with Lauren Boebert beyond her wildest dreams, let fortune favor the bold.