Lauren Boebert Refuses to Concede After CNN Projects Democrat Eileen Laubacher Wins Her Colorado Seat, Saying Counties Have Until November 13 to Count Every Ballot, Thousands Still Need Curing, and Her Campaign Is Probing 'Unusual Voting Patterns'
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Lauren Boebert is refusing to concede. CNN projected on Monday that Democrat Eileen Laubacher has won Colorado's 4th Congressional District, flipping the Republican seat and ending Boebert's time in Congress — but Boebert says the race is not over, because the counting is not finished.
Here is what she is saying. Boebert posted a video on Monday evening after landing in Washington, having flown in from Colorado. "Hey everyone, so I got off my Frontier flight from Colorado to DC and I saw that CNN and the Democrats want to call my race and prematurely declare victory," she said.
She says counties still have until November 13 under Colorado law to finish counting and curing every eligible ballot. Curing is the process where election officials contact voters whose mail ballots have a problem — a missing signature, or a signature that does not match the one on file — so the voter can fix it and the ballot still counts. Boebert says thousands of ballots still need curing, plus military and overseas votes are still out. Declaring victory now, she said, is "like icing a cake before it comes out of the oven."
Her campaign is going further. Its attorney, Scott Gessler, a former Colorado secretary of state, said last week the campaign is investigating "some very unusual voting patterns" and expects the race to head to a recount "one way or another." He did not point to any specific evidence. The campaign says it is waiting for final results from every county before deciding its next move, and called it irresponsible to declare a winner while so many votes are outstanding.
Boebert closed her video by thanking voters, her staff and volunteers, and left the door open either way: "Regardless of the final outcome, we will move forward to future victories together. We'll make sure that every eligible vote is counted and every single voice is heard before we take any next steps."
Laubacher is not waiting. She declared victory on Monday and was already at the Capitol for new-member orientation, the training sessions incoming lawmakers attend before being sworn in in January. "I'm honored by the trust the people of Colorado's 4th District have placed in me," she said in a statement, adding that Boebert had not called her to concede.
What this means: as of Monday evening Laubacher led with 48.8 percent of the vote to Boebert's 47.9 percent — a gap of 3,352 votes — with an estimated 98 percent of the vote counted. Libertarian Douglas Mangeris took 12,605 votes, or 3.3 percent. That gap matters because Colorado only orders an automatic recount when the margin is less than half of 1 percent of the winner's total — roughly 930 votes in this race. Boebert trails by just under 1 percentage point, outside that range, so there is no automatic recount: she can still request one, but her campaign would have to pay for it. Voters have until November 12 to cure ballot problems, and counties are expected to finish counting around November 13, when the campaign says it will decide its next step.
Boebert has been here before. In 2022 she held her old 3rd District seat by 546 votes over Democrat Adam Frisch — a margin small enough to trigger an automatic recount — before Frisch conceded. In 2024 she switched to the 4th District, the most Republican congressional seat in Colorado, and won it with 53.6 percent of the vote. The district had not elected a Democrat since 2008. Monday's projection was the first call in the race by a national decision desk; the results remain unofficial, and the state canvass follows later this month.
For voters in the district, what is at stake now is simple: whether every cured and overseas ballot is counted before the result is final, and whether Boebert pays for a recount to test the numbers. Either way, the seat counts toward the new House — with Colorado's 4th District projected Democratic, the incoming House stands at 255 Democrats and 162 Republicans, with 18 races still uncalled, and the new Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2027.
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