By Jim Ellis
July 1, 2020 — While the pre-election coverage to yesterday’s Colorado primary focused on how former governor and presidential candidate John Hickenlooper would fare in the Democratic Senate primary – he would win 60-40 percent, which was certainly well below what original projections forecast – the real story came in the state’s Western Slope congressional district.
There, five-term veteran Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Cortez) was soundly denied re-nomination by 2nd Amendment activist and local restaurant owner Lauren Boebert in the Republican congressional primary. When the final votes are counted, Boebert will break 54 percent of the vote of what looks to be about 120,000 cast votes, more than double the amount of the last GOP primary held here in 2016.Boebert will spend well under $200,000 for her effort; long known as a local conservative activist, she made her money count with a pointed message to Republican primary voters. Her strategy was to create a negative image of Rep. Tipton for “siding with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her squad” in relation to bailing out the city of Boulder, which is not in his 3rd District, how he “teamed with Nancy Pelosi to give amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants,” and “forced taxpayers to pay $1 billion for their housing.”
The race was relatively close in every place except Mesa County, which houses the district’s second largest city, Grand Junction. The area allowed her to build approximately 8,500 of her 9,600 vote spread against the incumbent, and defeating him despite Tipton carrying 19 of the district’s 29 counties. Totals are not complete due to the state’s all-mail voting system, but there is no doubt that Boebert has won.
The Democratic nominee, by virtue of a 61 percent win in her primary, is 2018 nominee Daine Mitsch Bush, who was planning for a re-match with Rep. Tipton. Now, she will have to reverse course to compete against a firebrand conservative who wears a firearm strapped to her right leg and owns a restaurant on I-70 called “The Shooters Grill.” This new open seat will be competitive, and colorful, in the fall.
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