Lauren Boebert’s Apology Tour

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WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 24: U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) leaves a House Republican conference meeting in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill on October 24, 2023 in Washington, DC. Members of the G... WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 24: U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) leaves a House Republican conference meeting in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill on October 24, 2023 in Washington, DC. Members of the GOP conference will meet for a closed-door vote to select their nominee for Speaker of the House to succeed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who was ousted on October 4 in a move led by a small group of conservative members of his own party. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) MORE LESS

October 31, 2023 6:07 p.m.

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As 2023 winds down and lawmakers gear up for a reelection year and time back home among constituents over the holidays, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is attempting to rehabilitate her reputation. The message she’s trying to communicate to voters back home? She’s “sorry.”

You may have already seen the Associated Press piece from Monday, in which Boebert launched her apology tour. The article digs in on her recent efforts to make nice with local Colorado media and project an aura of focus on the issues Coloradans care about most, like land management and water rights. But the spine of the piece is centered on a recent campaign dinner, the Lincoln Day Dinner in Archuleta County, Colorado, where she told supporters in attendance that she owed “each and every one of you here a deep, heartfelt apology.”

The pivot reflects the pressing realities of a congresswoman who hasn’t tempered her approach since her 2022 squeaker of an election. Boebert has spent months forcing her way to the front of the pack that’s been spearheading the injection of chaos and dysfunction into every basic governing procedure in the House ever since Republicans secured the majority. She has garnered headlines for her half-baked Biden impeachment push and her feud with onetime ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

The new persona is damage control, according to the AP, as the lawmaker tries to clean up the negative attention she received a few weeks back when she was caught red-handed lying about vaping, fondling and getting thrown out of a Beetlejuice show back home in Denver.

While she’s temperamentally akin to a Gaetz or a Greene, she’s saddled with one major obstacle the new Trumpists usually aren’t: a toss-up district. The Colorado congresswoman who won her reelection by just 546 votes in 2022 is not only polling neck-and-neck with Democratic challenger Adam Frisch, but is also being out-raised by him.

Per AP:

Frisch has raised at least $7.7 million — the third largest House campaign chest nationwide — to Boebert’s $2.4 million. He’s asking voters to help him “stop the circus,” reviving a slogan from the 2022 election.

We’ll be watching to see if the rifle-touting, extremely online, Hunter Biden fanatic can pull off a home district-focused rebrand over the course of the next year.