Lauren Boebert says special election triggered by Ken Buck's resignation is 'swampy' and could 'confuse voters'

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado at the Capitol on February 29, 2024.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

• Rep. Ken Buck is retiring, teeing up a special election in Colorado's 4th district on June 25.
• It could shake up the GOP primary where Lauren Boebert is running, and she's raising concerns.
• "This has a lot of potential to confuse voters, which is problematic," said Boebert.

Rep. Lauren Boebert is raising alarms about the special election that's now set to take place in the district where she recently moved.

Republican Rep. Ken Buck, who represents the state's 4th congressional district, announced on Tuesday that he would resign from the House in just two weeks.

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis announced that he would schedule a special election to fill Buck's seat on June 25 — the same day as the competitive GOP primary that Boebert jumped into at the end of last year.

"This has a lot of potential to confuse voters, which is problematic," Boebert said of the primary on an X Space with fellow Republicans, including Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and the recently expelled Rep. George Santos of New York.

Boebert is currently in the midst of a hotly-contested primary against several GOP candidates in the district, which covers the eastern swath of the state. She's faced accusations of carpetbagging after abandoning the more competitive 3rd district, which covers the opposite side of the state.

While the primary will be decided by GOP primary voters, it will be up to a group of local party officials to decide each party's nominee for the special election.

"That is some crazy banana republic shit you've got — you're doing in Colorado," said Gaetz.

"It's kind of swampy," said Boebert, alluding to Buck's decision to resign from Congress early rather than serve out the remainder of his term — which would have prevented the current situation.

The congresswoman noted that the scheduling of the two elections on the same day is a measure to save taxpayer money.

"Suddenly they're concerned about that," said Boebert. "First time I've ever heard of that in Colorado."

Boebert, despite her national star power, ultimately has little say over who the local party chooses to run in the special election.

But whoever gets that nomination is likely to end up in Congress for at least July through December, given the conservative bent of the district. Earning the vacancy's committee's nomination could also give them an advantage with primary voters.

The congresswoman, while stressing that she's "not making any official statement of what I'm doing" in the special election, indicated that she would prefer that the local party nominate a candidate who is not currently running in the primary.

That would avoid giving any primary candidate an advantage, and it would preclude the need for another special election in her current district if she were to be selected, which she said she "would never allow to happen."

"We're all figuring this out," said Boebert. "We're talking to the vacancy committee, seeing what their plan is, seeing if they have someone who's not a candidate who's going to run in the special."

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