Nearly 240 miles east of Lauren Boebert’s former stronghold Rifle, past the Rockies and onto the Colorado plains, the high school homecoming parade in the Republican’s newly-adopted town marched a circular route last week – twice passing a corner yard with a Harris/Walz sign declaring: “UNITY OVER DIVISION.”
Boebert’s arrival with her sons has sparked the opposite in Windsor, a community of just under 43,000 people about an hour north of Denver. Her relocation here from the Western Slope was divisive in itself – not just between Democrats and Republicans but also among loyal GOP voters – when she announced quietly during last year’s holiday season that she would abandon her re-election campaign in CD3 in favor of a run on the other side of the state.
That placed her in a district she knew nothing about, where she’d never lived and where well-connected, well-respected local Republicans eyeing congressional bids themselves took great umbrage – along with their loyal supporters and those on the other side of the political spectrum.
“She’s not a leader; she’s a rabble rouser,” Holly Hoag, a 65-year-old who’s lived in Windsor for more than three decades, tells The Independent. She’s posted a sign in her yard, just a block from Main Street, in support of Boebert’s Democratic opponent, Trisha Calvarese.
The aesthetics and vibe of Windsor are a far cry from Boebert’s old stomping grounds of Rifle and Garfield County, where the congresswoman got her first job at McDonald’s, dropped out of high school and became infamous for owning a restaurant with gun-strapped women waitstaff. Rifle remains unpretentious, with a still rough-and-tumble feel of the Old West; 2022 census data put its population at just under 15,000, with a little more than 15 per cent of residents holding a college degree.
Windsor, which is growing fast, boasts well-manicured neighborhoods and developments reminiscent of Desperate Housewives-perfect Wisteria Lane, all of it anchored by a downtown described by the Main Street hair salon’s website as “trendy.” There are cute restaurants, breweries and shops, and local power players – especially Republicans with deep pockets – clearly have big plans for the place. Almost 50 per cent of residents have a college degree, and the median household income is 40 per cent higher than the rest of the region’s.
Boebert’s district switch was widely viewed as a response to her Democrat opponent, Adam Frisch – who’d nearly beat her in 2022 – continuing to exponentially out-fundraise the 37-year-old and build grassroots support as he sought to claim her seat this time around.
The cross-state move also followed a series of personal public embarrassments. The professed devout Christian divorced her husband in 2023; then, perhaps most damningly, the mother of four was kicked out of a Denver performance of Beetlejuice last September after allegedly vaping, misbehaving and groping her date – a Democrat from Aspen, no less. She lied about it, then apologized.
None of that helped her already uncertain re-election bid, but the family drama continued following the CD4 announcement. Spats and family issues prompted police intervention repeatedly back in Garfield County at the beginning of this year; her 18-year-old son was also arrested in February, charged with a string of offenses that included allegedly robbing a woman with a brain tumor.
Boebert claimed the relocation east was meant to give her family a new start; politically, though, she notably carpetbagged to a district that’s far more heavily red, all but guaranteeing her a win for the seat previously held by Rep. Ken Buck. The more moderate Republican, who’d attracted the ire of the MAGA faction, announced last November that he would not seek reelection but went a step further and decided not to finish out the rest of his term – leaving office in March as he complained that Congress “just keeps going downhill.”
Buck had held the seat for nine years, winning with almost 61 per cent of the vote in 2022; in Weld County, where Windsor sits, he took 21,828 votes to the Democrat’s 8,648. Boebert faced significant competition to fill the office from well-known local players, who immediately took aim at her carpetbagging, personal drama and perceived preference for national headlines over local issues – but she still won the primary by a landslide.
CD4 hasn’t elected a Democrat since 2008. As of 2022, Democrats constituted 17.7 per cent of registered voters to 37.1 per cent of Republicans – and unaffiliated accounted for the largest bloc at 43.6 per cent. The district’s 721,794 residents were 79.6 per cent white.
When Boebert landed in Windsor, Democrats, in particular, were horrified.
“She’s very inappropriate; I think she’s not somebody that we want our kids looking up to,” Hoag, who displayed a satirical “Putin/Trump” sign alongside her Calvarese sign, tells The Independent. “I just think she’s pretty disgusting.”
Hoag is pretty tough; she’s recovering from a broken sternum sustained in a moose attack on a recent trip to Wyoming. But, given the political climate, she says she “was afraid to put my signs out” and “really thought twice about it.”
Janene Willey, another Calvarese supporter in Windsor who lives a few streets away, decided to “put our signs up in the window so they don’t disappear.”
“Everybody’s keeping their mouth shut because they don’t know what’s going to happen, and there is a certain amount of fear of the weaponized side that they’re going to revolt or do something,” she says.
But Hoag, despite the fear of vandalism, theft or repercussions, explains why she felt public support was important.
“I think we need to speak up,” she says. “I just think there’s a real, silent majority right now that are too afraid to put bumper stickers on their car, because there’s this radical side that is violent.”
That silent majority is what Democeat Calverse – a labor activist and speechwriter who grew up in the district – is banking on.
“It’s exactly that – it is quiet, where they’re saying, ‘Well, you know, I’m not going to take a sign or … I can’t put that out, but you have my vote and I’m going to call my neighbors,’” she tells The Independent.
Calverese raised nearly five times the amount Boebert did between July and September 30, a whopping almost $2.7m in contrast to the congresswoman’s $532,000.
“Don’t let anybody tell you this race is unwinnable,” Calvarese says.
“Keep in mind, actually the highest percent of voters in this district are unaffiliated,” she adds, noting that she’s “absolutely” targeting that bloc. “So people are thinking beyond the party paradigm … we’ve been doing meet-and-greets all throughout the district and the rural parts of the counties; people show up, and they’re thrilled that other people are showing up.”
The daughter of conservative Catholics, she’s not afraid to broach dialogue with the other side, either – perhaps bolstered by news from one Republican, her AP chem teacher, that he would in fact be voting for her.
“I’m even reaching out to Republicans, too, wherever I meet them, shaking their hand, looking them in the eye, and saying, ‘Look, I’m here to represent you. I see you have a Trump hat on, right?’
“I’m endorsed by the Teamsters, for example … and I’m getting ticket splitters,” she says, calling a campaign goal “trying to restore that traditional blue-dog Democratic … neighborhood feeling.”
She and Boebert are not only the same age, they were born the same week, the Democrat in Colorado and the Republican in Florida.
“It’s just going toe-to-toe with this millennial who’s just like a representative for an entire generation,” she tells The Independent. “I tell young people, ‘Look, this wasn’t on my bingo card …Run for office.’ If people like Lauren Boebert are doing it, then people like me need to do it, and other people need to step up, too.”
Bev Wallace, who chairs Weld County Democrats, points to the many independent voters in the district as well as recent data she read on a neighborhood website compiling statistics on “schools, on income, on political leanings, on cost of living, all kinds of data you would want to know if you were moving there.”
“The map that they put up from the most recent data that they got from elections, on voter registration, they put Weld County as not red; it’s a light lavender blue, not dark blue.”
She points to an influx of younger families lured by the area’s relative affordability, particularly in parts of Boebert’s new county – although not Windsor itself – that are $100,000 less than properties just across the interstate.
“And that’s been our hope,” she says. “To turn Weld County blue.”
Regardless of any trends or rapidly changing demographics, however, politics has created deep divisions within CD4 and, particularly, Windsor.
“It is really tough up here to say anything,” Willey, who’s lived in Windsor for 20 years, tells The Independent. “And I think that’s kind of the overwhelming premise of this election.
Willey serves on the Windsor Water/Sewer board, which still meets at 6.30am in the court house “because that’s when the old ditch riders would be done with their day opening all the ditches, and then they would come in, have a cup of coffee and be the water board,” she says.
She also works at a nearby garden operation, where “there’s been a big divide” thanks to politics.
“The flower people are all Democrats, and the veggie people are all Republicans,” she says.
“It’s horrible,” says Hoag. “I have neighbors that are pretty conservative and that will vote for Trump – neighbors that have been my neighbors for years. You don’t speak to them anymore. They don’t speak to you. We don’t speak to each other anymore.”
Lifelong Windsor resident Mario Melendez, who The Independent later learned is married to the town’s former mayor, lives in one of the few homes proudly displaying a Boebert sign outside – but echoes Hoag’s comments about an absence of dialogue.
“I’m more Republican, so I don’t really say anything to other people.” he tells The Independent. “And I just don’t understand what they’re thinking …. Democratic and liberal people.
“People don’t understand what the heck’s going on in the world,” says Melendez, 63. “They think it’s the new wave or something.”
When it comes to Boebert, though, the avid Trump supporter believes “she’s a good person … I respect what she says” and “what she stands for.”
“I got to meet her a few times and sit and talk to her,” Melendez says. “My wife does the same thing, and she’s behind her.”
Some residents argue that, anecdotally, there are fewer political signs displayed in Windsor than in previous years; it’s uncertain whether Boebert’s presence has anything to do with that, but locals in Rifle and Silt had also seemed loathe to put out endorsements during her previous two bids – either for or against the MAGA stalwart.
There were Boebert trailers, posters and billboards scattered throughout CD3, inarguably; they just tended never to materialize in her backyard.
A few blocks away from Boebert’s new home in Windsor, Michelle Softich and Toby Rogers decided “just to inject a little humor into a pretty contentious situation” – putting out a “Willie Nelson for President” sign.
They’re of the opinion that they “haven’t seen as many signs one way or the other this year” – but Softich, 43, has her own theory.
“Even if you are friends or family members with people who are on different sides, I think we’ve already had those blowups,” she says. “And now we’re trying to keep the peace.”
