Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones of New York, Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida
Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Take Back the Court Action Fund; Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Rep. Lauren Boebert is switching districts in a bid to improve her re-election chances.
It's a tactic commonly known as "carpetbagging."
But she's far from the first person to do it — or at least consider the idea.
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert announced on Wednesday that she will run for reelection in a more Republican-leaning district on the opposite end of Colorado from where she actually lives.
It's a brazen move — not just because she was facing an uphill re-election fight in her more competitive district, but because it amounts to an admission that ideology and values ultimately trump the job of representing the interests of a particular constituency.
Historically, it's been known as "carpetbagging," a term that dates back to the aftermath of the Civil War, when it emerged as a Southern epithet for the dozens of Northerners who moved to the region to become members of Congress and governors.
These days, it's a shorthand for a different sort of geographic opportunism, one that's been enabled by the nationalization of politics and the cultivation of celebrity brands that reach for beyond the boundaries of one House district.
And historically, it's really not a rare occurrence.
Hillary Clinton was dogged by accusations of carpetbagging when she ran for a Senate seat in New York in 2000, and Pennsylvania seems to be suffering an epidemic of the phenomenon as of late. In 2017, the Washington Post identified over 20 lawmakers who were technically registered to vote outside of their districts.
Here are some of the most notable examples from recent years.
Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones of New York
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
In 2020, Mondaire Jones was elected to represent a district well north of New York City, including portions of Westchester County and the Hudson Valley.
Then came redistricting.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, then the chair of House Democrats' campaign arm, opted to run for a district that Jones might have sought to run in. Maloney ultimately lost to Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.
That decision spurred progressive outrage at the time, with many arguing that Maloney should've run for a more difficult district to the north.
Unwilling to run against neighboring Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Jones instead launched a campaign in a newly-drawn district that covered lower Manhattan and portions of Brooklyn.
He ended up losing the Democratic primary to Dan Goldman, who was elected to Congress in 2022.
This year, Jones is once again running for Congress — in the district that Maloney lost to Lawler.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on Capitol Hill on November 29, 2023.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
It's lost to the sands of time by now, but Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't always live in the far northwest corner of Georgia.
Though she now represents the state's 14th district, Greene initially launched a campaign in 2019 for the state's 6th district in the Atlanta suburbs, where she had long lived.
But she later abandoned those plans, opting to run in the 14th district after the incumbent congressman announced his retirement.
Greene later moved to Rome, a city in the district, and continues to live there to this day.
Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina
U.S. Rep Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) announced his divorce on Wednesday, slightly less than a year after being married to his wife, Christina Bayardelle Cawthorn.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Before he lost his primary to a relatively low-profile state senator last year, former Rep. Madison Cawthorn got a little too ambitious with his state's congressional map.
Following a round of redistricting, Cawthorn announced that he would run in a district that was largely to the east of his original district — and much safer for Republicans — in order to "take ground" for conservatism.
It was also seen as an attempt to prevent North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, who Cawthorn suggested was not conservative enough.
He told one interviewer that he was "afraid that another establishment go-along to get-along Republican will prevail there."
Critical announcement: we are taking ground for conservatism.
But then the districts were redrawn again, and Cawthorn opted to run for his old district a few months later.
While his eventual loss was due at least in part to the controversy he'd generated for himself in Washington, it also may have been driven by his initial plans to abandon the district he was elected to represent.
Republican Rep. Alex Mooney of West Virginia
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Rep. Alex Mooney has steadily risen through West Virginia politics, getting elected to the House in 2014 before defeating fellow Rep. David McKinley in a member-on-member race in 2022 after the state lost a district.
He's now the main opposition to Gov. Jim Justice — national GOP leadership's preferred candidate — in the state's US Senate race to replace Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
But Mooney's political career began in next-door Maryland, where he served in the state senate from 1999 to 2011. He later served as the chairman of the Maryland Republican Party until 2013.
Then came 2014.
Two years earlier, Mooney had filed to run in a Maryland congressional district, but was forced to withdraw his candidacy in order to comply with House ethics rules related to running to succeed one's own boss (at the time, he was part-time employed by a Maryland congressman).
In 2013, Mooney moved to Charles Town, a town in West Virginia's eastern panhandle not far from his old district, and was elected to a House seat in his newly adopted state in 2014.
Mehmet Oz (and David McCormick) in Pennsylvania
Republican Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.
Jeff Swensen and Win McNamee/Getty Images
There's just something about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Last year, Mehmet Oz — the GOP's US Senate nominee — was dogged by the perception that he was a wealthy out-of-stater who knew little about the state he sought to represent.
It was a theme that Oz's Democratic opponent — now-Sen. John Fetterman — capitalized on heavily via memes. It also didn't help that Oz's main residence was in neighboring New Jersey.
But the accusations of carpetbagging don't end with the former TV doctor.
David McCormick, who was last year's runner-up and is next year's presumptive GOP nominee for Senate, also lives outside of Pennsylvania.
The Associated Press revealed earlier this year that McCormick primarily lives in Connecticut — a state that doesn't even border Pennsylvania.
His campaign has defended the arrangement, pointing out that McCormick owns a house in the Pittsburgh area and grew up in Pennsylvania.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida
Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, speaks to reporters after engineering Speaker Kevin McCarthy's historic ouster.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Before he became the chief antagonist of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz reportedly considered trying to become a senator — from Alabama.
According to a 2019 report from The Hill, the Florida congressman told colleagues he was considering running against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in 2020. Gaetz represents a Florida panhandle district that borders the state.
And he didn't emphatically deny the idea when asked about it.
"I had a few people make mention to me that Alabama has a very short residency requirement, but it's not something I've looked at myself," Gaetz told The Hill at the time. "I think that my most likely path would be to seek reelection in the House."
Gaetz ultimately followed that path, and now-Sen. Tommy Tuberville — who may actually live in Gaetz's Florida district himself — defeated Jones in 2020.
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