It was a bad sign of things to come when Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado started making excuses for her failed re-election bid before the race was called. Voters, the congresswoman told NewsNation during a Thursday interview, “were played by the markets.”

Asked what that meant, the Coloradoan replied, “Everything is just dropping.”

Evidently, that includes her political career. MS NOW reported:

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., a MAGA stalwart, has narrowly lost her re-election campaign to Democrat Eileen Laubacher, The Associated Press projected Friday.

With 99% of the vote counted, Laubacher — a former Republican — led Boebert by just under 0.9%. … The result ends a tumultuous three terms for Boebert, a conspiracy theorist who ran for Congress as the co-owner of a gun-themed bar and grill in the mountain town of Rifle, Colorado, and reveled in the notoriety she found in Washington.

Soon after taking office in 2021, Boebert, a far-right conspiracy theorist who expressed an interest in the QAnon delusion, quickly became one of Congress’ most controversial members. In fact, six months into her first term, Dana Milbank wrote a memorable column describing the Republican congresswoman as being “lost in a cacophony of crazy.”

It was around this time when Boebert, who spoke often about carrying a gun, set off an alarm at a congressional metal detector and refused to allow guards to search her handbag.

In the years that followed, Boebert’s standing did not improve. It’s difficult to pick the single lowest point of her troubled career, though it’s tough to overlook a 2023 incident in which the Colorado lawmaker attended a family-friendly “Beetlejuice” musical production in Denver, only to get kicked out of the venue for “causing a disturbance” at the show.

The lawmaker denied any wrongdoing, right up until surveillance footage from within the theater proved that she had obviously acted inappropriately with her date.

But what I find especially notable about Boebert’s career was the strategy she employed to remain on Capitol Hill. After winning in 2020 by 6 points, the congresswoman started wearing out her welcome in Colorado’s 3rd District fairly quickly, and by Election Day 2022, Boebert barely held on, winning a second term by about 500 votes.

The message from local voters seemed pretty obvious: Much of the GOP-leaning district was unimpressed with the congresswoman and her antics. Common sense suggested that Boebert should have learned from the near defeat and become a more responsible lawmaker, if for no other reason than to improve her prospects.

Instead, Boebert moved, hoping to fare better in Colorado’s more conservative 4th district, which Donald Trump won two years ago by 18 points. Except that clearly didn’t work, either.

She’ll be succeeded by Laubacher, a retired two-star Navy rear admiral who served on the National Security Council during the Biden administration, and who said she left the Republican Party after it became “nearly unrecognizable.”

As for Boebert, the defeated congresswoman said earlier this week that if she ended up losing, she would not launch a rematch in the 2028 elections.

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From MS Now.