Meet Eileen Laubacher, the Navy Veteran Who Beat Lauren Boebert

Eileen Laubacher put 40,000 miles on her campaign car visiting ranching towns and rural hospitals across eastern Colorado as she tried to persuade Republican voters to dump their congresswoman, the hard-right firebrand Lauren Boebert.

Ms. Laubacher, a Navy veteran and former Republican, was a first-time Democratic candidate hoping to oust a gun-toting icon of the MAGA movement in Colorado’s reddest congressional district. Even some of her own supporters worried it was a losing fight.

But on Friday, The Associated Press declared Ms. Laubacher the winner in the unexpectedly close race.

She called her win a testament to showing up in rural towns and other places where voters felt ignored and ill-served by both major political parties. But she acknowledged she had a lot of work ahead to keep her Republican-leaning district on her side.

“We have a lot to deliver on,” Ms. Laubacher said in an interview from Washington, where she spent Monday in an orientation with other newly elected House members. “Just because we won this election doesn’t mean things have gotten better for people. Groceries haven’t gotten cheaper. The war in Iran is still happening.”

Ms. Laubacher campaigned on cutting costs, ending President Trump’s tariffs and reducing taxes on the middle class. A retired rear admiral, she pitched herself as a service-minded suburban mother of five and assailed Ms. Boebert as a walking scandal who had harmed farmers and veterans in her rural district.

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