April 14, 2025 11:59 AM UTC

Thanks To Lauren Boebert, Greg Lopez Is Never Going Away

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• by: Colorado Pols

As 9NEWS’ Jennifer Campbell-Hicks reports this morning, one of the baddest pennies in Colorado Republican politics is back for yet another go-round: and unlike previous failed attempts including his primary defeat in 2022 at the hands of fellow gubernatorial megaloser Heidi Ganahl, perrennial candidate for anything and everything Greg Lopez has a new lease on political life:

Greg Lopez, a perennial Republican candidate recently who served a six-month stint as a placeholder in Congress, has launched his third run for Colorado governor.

Lopez made the announcement in an online video Monday, describing a Colorado in decay and pledging a unity agenda…

Lopez, a hardline conservative, was selected by a Republican vacancy committee in 2024 to serve the remaining months of retiring Republican Rep. Ken Buck’s term in Congress. Lopez then handily won the special election in the 4th Congressional District, Colorado’s reddest congressional district, to fill out the term.

Lopez had agreed to serve as a placeholder candidate to pave the way for Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert to switch districts and run for Buck’s seat in the general election. The plan worked.

Let’s begin by being perfectly clear about why Greg Lopez was selected by Colorado’s carpetbagging crusader Rep. Lauren Boebert to hold the CO-04 seat while Boebert finished out her term in her erstwhile CO-03 seat: Lopez was considered a safe choice who would take the temporary job gladly without competing against Boebert in the CO-04 primary. The reason that Lopez posed no threat is simple: Lopez has never been considered a serious candidate for office, with a past conviction for domestic violence against his then-pregnant spouse that Lopez disastrously tried to excuse in one of the most agonizingly awful video mea culpas ever filmed. In 2020, Lopez settled a case with the SEC after allegedly trying to influence former colleagues at the Small Business Administration. In 2022, despite all his baggage, Lopez won the top line at the GOP state assembly before losing by a smaller-than-expected margin to Ganahl.

After Ganahl went on to get shellacked in the 2022 general election by almost 20 points, as the loser to another loser Lopez seemed to be…well, maybe not entirely washed up given his low bar of expectations, but at least not helped by the experience.

Enter Lauren Boebert.

Lopez agreed to serve as Boebert’s six-month placeholder, thwarting CO-04 Republicans who wanted the special election and the primary to have the same winner–which would necessarily not have been Boebert since she was not a candidate for the special election. Lopez by all accounts enjoyed his field trip to Washington, and Lopez faithfully carried out his only real duty, which was to go quietly. Despite pretending to be involved in the earliest stages of DOGE, even saying the quiet part out loud about cuts to vital social safety nets on the table, Lopez wasn’t there long enough to have any real impact.

But thanks to that six months in Washington sealing the deal for Lauren Boebert’s carpetbagging, Greg Lopez has more viability as a Republican primary candidate than ever before. As a result, Lopez’s entry into the 2026 gubernatorial race is much more significant than any of his prior bids for non-temporary office. Setting aside Lopez’s personal issues and frequently wacky policy prescriptions, Lopez is better known now after his brief stint in Congress than the state legislators like Rep. Scott Bottoms and Sen. Mark Baisley who have thrown their hats in the ring. Especially if Rep. Boebert returns the favor of Lopez’s cooperation with support in the primary, Lopez has a better shot of winning the Republican nomination fluke-free than ever before.

And to be clear, we are not making any assessment here of Lopez’s viability in the general election. There will be plenty of time for that after there’s no turning back.