WTH, Colorado's Third?

Since the November election and especially January 6, I've been trying to figure out how Lauren Boebert came to be elected to Congress. I already knew about Georgia's newly elected Congresswoman from QAnon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who comes from a very Republican district and had won her primary, so the fact that she got elected in November wasn't surprising. But for me, Boebert came from nowhere.

Nowhere, in this case, is Colorado's Third District, which is about two-fifths of the state, including the entire western third. It hooks out a bit in the south to encompass the city of Pueblo, which I gather makes the people there pretty unhappy, since they don't believe they have much in common with the western part of the state (according to this editorial in the Pueblo newspaper). 

The Third District, shown here in lightest blue, covers more than a third of the state. The disparity in population density across the state's counties is evident, with the Third and Fourth districts covering more than four-fifths of the land mass and the Second and Fifth covering most of the rest of it. The Denver metro area has enough people to account for three districts. (This disparity in the geography of district size is not a lot different in Minnesota, I realize.)

This map shows the political make-up of the districts. Only one is labeled a true purple toss-up, with the Third and the Seventh next most likely to be a toss-up or the least skewed, depending on how you look at it. (I have to say, these district boundaries seem pretty gerrymandered to me, but from a quick look around it appears there's a lot to read on gerrymandering in Colorado, even for the past 10 years and I don't have time. Colorado is likely to add an eighth seat after the 2020 census, so watch for some fireworks!)

As with the Madison Cawthorn race in North Carolina, Lauren Boebert's opponent in the Third District was much more qualified and I think would have represented the district well. Diane Mitsch Bush is a former Colorado legislator and county commissioner who had worked on bipartisan initiatives. As that Pueblo newspaper editorial cited above put it,

There are 435 voting representatives in the U.S. House. But Boebert is going in there and promises to stop efforts to take away our guns (which is paranoid hyperbole) and stand up to Democrats Nancy Pelosi and “AOC,” aka Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a representative from New York City.

Good luck with that, especially standing up to the Speaker of the House. Sure, Boebert can hold news conferences and be a darling on Fox News, but she would be ineffectual in Congress with that attitude. And that’s where we need success. Air time on conservative networks doesn’t help Colorado.

Mitsch Bush, on the other hand, would be well-respected from day one, drawing significant committee assignments and she would begin working her way up the seniority ladder. That’s how the system works, and that’s how Colorado would benefit in terms of representation and legislation that helps our state.

According to a Denver Post editorial endorsing Mitsch Bush, Boebert would not meet with their editorial board (she met only with the Grand Junction paper's board). According to the Post, Boebert had no policy positions at all on her website. 

Mitsch Bush, notably, was endorsed by prominent Republicans, including the former speaker of the state House (who also lives in Rifle, where Boebert is from). The Chamber of Commerce chose not to endorse a candidate (which means they couldn't stomach Boebert, the Republican candidate).

There was some reputable coverage during the campaign season that Boebert was a believer in Q and was affiliated with the Proud Boys. We've since seen how she behaves in Congress.

Polling as the election neared had Mitsch Bush ahead or in a dead heat with Boebert, but Mitsch Bush ended up losing by 5 points, roughly 51 to 46 percent. As we saw in a number of races around the country, polling turned out to be unreliable, though I suppose 5 points may have been on the outside edge of the margin of error, in this case.

While Colorado overall has about the same number of registered Democrats and Republicans, it has even more unaffiliated voters than either. In the Third District, though, there are more Republicans than Democrats, but still more unaffiliated voters. The district breakdown, in increasing order, is 133,000 to 160,000 to 192,000. Colorado, of course, has all mail-in ballots, so in-person turnout on election day was not a factor. 

The Third District went to Trump by 12 points in 2016 but he had a decrease to a 5.5 point margin in 2020. (Note: It went to Romney by 6 points in 2012.) Colorado overall had the second highest voter turnout in the country. It looks like turnout in 2020 for the major counties in the Third District was just a bit higher than in 2016.

So the only thing I can conclude from all of this is that Lauren Boebert is what the majority of people in the state's Third District want. Ugh.

Or at least, she's what they thought they wanted on November 3, 2020.

God, Guns and Trump... and Lauren Boebert.

____ 

Colorado's Congressional delegation by district: 

1. Diana DeGette (D-Denver)

2. Joe Neguse (D-Lafayette)—Boulder, Fort Collins, northwest Denver exurbs, north central mountains

3. Lauren Boebert - (R-Rifle)—the western mountainous areas and deserts

4. Ken Buck (R-Windsor)—the eastern flatland, including Greely

5. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs)—Colorado Springs and Focus on the Familyland (I'm oversimplifying)

6. Jason Crow (D-Aurora)—east and southeast Denver suburbs

7. Ed Perlmutter (D-Arvada)—west and northwest Denver suburbs

 All three Republican representatives voted against Trump's second impeachment.

On the vote to certify the Electoral College, the Republicans were almost equally as bad. Boebert and Lamborn voted to not certify on both votes that were taken. Buck, however, voted to certify on Arizona and did not vote on Pennsylvania. He had earlier stated that "the Constitution doesn't give Congress the authority to do so." Source.