Rep. Lauren Boebert‘s (R-CO) critics rarely miss an opportunity to paint her as a “phony” on veterans issues.
They dismissed a Veteran’s Day message she recorded as “performative politics.” Her attendance at a Purple Heart ceremony? A “photo op.”
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The attacks are nothing new — she’s endured the brunt of them since voting last year against the PACT Act, a bill expanding healthcare to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while fighting overseas.
But their endurance as campaign fodder, and the lengths Boebert has gone to counter them, suggest the issue could prove pivotal in a race decided last cycle by fewer than 600 votes.
Boebert represents a comfortably red district in western Colorado yet nearly lost her 2022 race to Democrat Adam Frisch. The outcome shocked political spectators, and caught the attention of national Democrats who had largely written off the race.
Boebert, a gun-toting firebrand known as a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, is running for her third term with a target on her back as one of 31 Republicans who House Democrats see as most vulnerable next year.
Boebert has run her campaign as a culture warrior, yet try as she might to dismiss the allegations against her, the second-term lawmaker will be relitigating her record on veterans care until Election Day.
The one-year anniversary of the PACT Act was no exception. Frisch, mounting a second run for her seat, marked the occasion with a Thursday statement arguing she had abandoned Colorado veterans. Rocky Mountain Values, an outside group opposing her reelection to Congress, launched a 30-second commercial called “Left Behind.”
“I know about service. I watched my brothers die on the battlefield,” Marine Corps veteran George Autobee says in the ad. “There’s one thing that sticks with you from serving is you leave no one behind. But Lauren Boebert voted against healthcare for veterans who were exposed to the toxic burn pits.”
Boebert was far from the only lawmaker to vote against the PACT Act — she joined 87 Republicans in opposition, citing its steep price tag and concerns it would add to a case backlog for those already in the Veterans Affairs system.
But the Frisch campaign says Boebert has made a habit of “neglecting” veterans. Among her votes, she was one of nine to oppose a bill addressing maternal healthcare at the VA and one of 17 to vote against a bill on educational assistance for veterans.
The attacks have become so persistent that the Boebert campaign maintains a lengthy section on her website to address them.
The page puts front and center six veteran-related amendments she sponsored that cleared the House last month, as well as her votes in favor of veterans bills including this year’s VA appropriations bill.
As for the Rocky Mountain Values ad, Boebert campaign manager Drew Sexton dismissed Autobee, the Marine Corp veteran, as a partisan “extremist” for his past activism.
The campaign commissioned and frequently shares its own ad spots featuring pro-Boebert veterans.
The fixation on the issue underscores how support for veterans could become a wedge issue in a state home to a large aerospace industry and military population.
She touted her work across the aisle to lobby the Biden administration after it decided to keep the headquarters of Space Command, which benefits residents in parts of the 3rd District like Pueblo, in Colorado last month.
But Frisch has seized on her partisan streak, selling himself as a centrist who would keep his head down and focus on the agricultural issues important to her constituents.
Boebert has not shied away from the spotlight since arriving in Congress in 2021. She notoriously heckled President Joe Biden last year during his State of the Union address.
As the president spoke of how cancer from toxic burn pits had put service members in a “flag-draped coffin,” she shouted, “You put them in. Thirteen of them,” in reference to the soldiers killed amid the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Her outspoken reputation — Biden jokingly referred to her as that “very quiet Republican lady” on Wednesday — has earned her the support of influential conservative groups such as the Club for Growth, which is supporting her and the 19 other hard-liners who opposed Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) speakership bid in January. The organization has established a $20 million defense fund to protect their seats in 2024.
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But Boebert will have to contend with the influx of cash from national Democrats, as well as Frisch’s own fundraising success.
Frisch raised $2.6 million in the second quarter, compared to Boebert’s $818,000.
