Her opponent “has spoken out enough that people know who he is,” she told me. Does she get this kind of criticism often? “Have you seen my Twitter?” she replied. And then she began to say that “even well-meaning women” frequently ask her variations on the question that has long plagued female candidates: “Shouldn’t you stay home with your kids?” Now that she’s spoken at length about it, it certainly seems like she’s getting offended, or at least defensive.
Then there’s the “Beetlejuice” fiasco. “This isn’t what voters are worried about,” Boebert told me. Still, she apologized for the incident early in the campaign. And she still faces questions about her character and judgment, not for her actions in the theater, but for lying about it initially (she initially denied the incident, but there was a video). When pressed, she accused her Republican opponent of pushing “Democratic talking points.” Regardless, she said, “Just like with President Trump, every attack that’s leveled at me makes me stronger.”
No doubt her brazen nature and tendency to poke fun at herself helped. On the way out of Oscar’s, she was joking with someone about how she was divorced and needed to find a good rancher. When she turned around and saw me standing nearby, her eyes widened and she burst out laughing. “I forgot you were still here!” she cried, swiftly grabbing me from behind by the shoulders in a half-hug. She was still laughing at her own gaffe as we walked out into the parking lot.
A true MAGA supporter, the congresswoman downplays her political failures, including her near defeat in the 2022 election. Whenever the topic comes up, she says, “There were 50,000 Republicans who didn’t vote,” explaining that the reasons are directed at everything but her performance. Democrats spent too much money on the state, she told me. Democratic voters were “radicalized” by the failure of Roe v. Wade. There was apathy among her voters, probably based on the assumption that things would work out. And many Republicans felt disenfranchised by the 2020 presidential election, which, of course, was stolen, she says.
“We have a problem in America when people think their vote doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m working to fix that. I think a lot of people will come out to vote again, especially because of President Trump.” Last time, “there wasn’t a strong incentive to go out and vote,” she said.
