Meet the Colorado Republicans who want to take down Lauren Boebert after she moved in to their district

Rep. Lauren Boebert surprised Colorado Republicans last Christmas when she announced her decision to leave the 3rd District and run for office to replace the retiring Rep. Ken Buck in the 4th District. 

Boebert, the controversial MAGA Republican now endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has embraced the ‘carpetbagger’ label, traveling around the district to convince voters she is ready to fight for them, despite the drama surrounding her personal life and her messy divorce from her ex-husband. 

Few were more surprised by Boebert's decision than Republicans candidates who were already in the race. A few of them spoke with the DailyMail.com in Colorado about their race and how they planned to challenge Boebert in the Republican primary. 

Jerry Sonnenberg: Traditional Republican 

When former State Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg decided to run for Congress in Colorado’s 4th district, he texted Boebert to say he looked forward to serving with her on Capitol Hill. 

But the Congresswoman from Colorado’s 3rd District did not respond. Three weeks later, Boebert announced she would be running for Congress in his district after nearly losing her seat in 2022.

Colorado's 4th district is a more Republican district, which includes the sparsely populated counties on the state’s eastern planes, and portions of Larimer and Weld County.

Sonnenberg served 16 years in the Colorado House and Senate, all the while patiently cultivating the reputation of a successful statesman

Boebert is running for Congress again despite the drama surrounding her personal life and her messy divorce from her ex-husband

Sonnenberg, a fourth-generation farmer and rancher, told the DailyMail.com he was surprised by her decision, particularly since she did not call or text him before she announced her new campaign, but the race to replace the retiring Rep. Ken Buck is on.

He acknowledged in an interview Boebert has a lot of negatives, but he is not about to break his promise not to attack a fellow Republican during the race. 

The ‘Reagan Rule’ still exists in his personal code as he hearkens back to his upbringing.

‘I won’t say anything negative about anybody. My mama would slap me upside the head,’ he said during a lunch conversation with DailyMail.com in Denver, Colorado.

Sonnenberg served 16 years in the Colorado House and Senate, all the while patiently cultivating the reputation of a successful statesman.

After he announced his campaign, former Sen. Corey Gardner (R-CO) endorsed Sonnenberg, calling him the ‘conservative conscience of the 4th Congressional District.’ Former Colorado Senators Wayne Allard and Hank Brown, who also served the 4th district during their political careers joined him. 

But Sonnenberg not so sure he would necessarily want Buck’s endorsement, despite his long service as a Representative.

Sonnenberg’s legislative success, he says, is a product of his ability to work within a Democrat-led legislature and still get things done

Buck enraged Republicans in Colorado after he refused to back the House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden’s business dealings with his son Hunter and brother James and also refused to back the House measure to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. 

Sonnenberg says he would have voted with Republicans on both issues, citing the need to hold Biden accountable.

Buck also angered Colorado Republicans after he announced his decision to retire rather than finish out his term, putting the slim two-seat House Republican majority in jeopardy.

Sonnenberg points to his successful record of working in the State legislature to pass tax cuts, transportation funding, and deal with water rights, issues that affect both rural and urban voters with similar concerns.

The polite statesman could not be more different than Boebert, a candidate running on her record as a ‘RINO hunter’ in Congress and appearing with former President Trump at multiple rallies to get him back in office.

‘I'm, you know, a workhorse and not a show horse,’ he said, subtly emphasizing the differences with Boebert. 

Sonnenberg’s legislative success, he says, is a product of his ability to work within a Democrat-led legislature and still get things done.

‘People see that I'm a problem solver. I'm not necessarily one of those guys that will launch grenades and always find myself on TV and that's not not the way I work,’ he said.

Richard Holtorf: The Fighting House Minority Whip 

State House Minority Whip Rep. Richard Holtorf is not happy with Boebert jumping into the 4th district, and he has no problem criticizing her publicly.

‘I think it's it was an act of desperation to try to salvage what arguably it was a sinking ship for Lauren Boebert,’ he said, during an interview with DailyMail.com.

Holtorf's frankness has created some friction with his Republican colleagues, but he argues it’s all in the name of speaking directly to voters instead of dancing around the issues. 

‘Don't talk sideways, shoot straight, walk straight, talk straight, spit straight, and you'll be fine,’ he said, outlining his leadership style.

The son of a rancher and a combat helicopter pilot in the Army, Holtorf brands himself as the ‘No Nonsense Conservative'

DailyMail.com spoke with Holtorf about his campaign in his office at the State Capital, where he has built up his reputation as a fighter and a leader. 

The son of a rancher and a combat helicopter pilot in the Army, Holtorf brands himself as the ‘No Nonsense Conservative.’

Holtorf admits he understands why Trump endorsed Boebert, but he thinks Colorado voters want someone who does not have as much personal drama.

‘I still just don't think the electorate is going to go for it despite the fact that they are very strong supporters of Donald Trump for president,’ he told me. ‘I don't think that completely exonerates her from the carpet-bagging and the seat-swapping.’

Holtorf views Boebert’s decision to abandon the third distract in the upcoming election as an act of cowardice.

‘In the world I grew up in if you've got a good fight and you're standing behind your principles in that fight, then you need to stand and fight,’ he said. You don't cut and run. Lauren Boebert has cut and run.’

He argues that Boebert is a deserter of the conservative fight.

‘I don't know if you understand what the penalty for desertion is in the military,’ he said. ‘But it is very, very severe and involves something called a firing squad.’

Boebert’s personal and family drama, Holtorf said, would encourage voters in Colorado to support someone else.

‘She has a lot of problems with her family, and herself, and her family life that with a lot of judicial troubles,’ he said. ‘And that does not reflect well, with respect to a son that just recently has been arrested and charged with multiple felonies.’

Holtorf is referring to Boebert’s son Tyler getting arrested and changed 22 criminal charges, including five felonies, as police say he and his friends were caught using stolen credit cards in connection with a series of vehicle break-ins in Rifle, Colorado.

Holtorf does not have nice things to say about Buck either, accusing him of betraying his district and protecting the ‘Biden crime family’ by voting against the impeachment inquiry.

‘I’m disappointed and disgusted,’ he said, referring to Buck’s decision not to vote for the impeachment inquiry. ‘That's not his role. And that was shouldn't have been his role. He should have voted on the right side of that for his district.’

He knows Buck and says in the last 10 years, the congressman ‘has become part of the swamp’ despite writing his 2010 book titled ‘Drain the Swamp.’

‘I got in this race because I told Ken Buck, I'm going to help you pack your suitcase. You no longer are my congressman and you no longer represent the value of the citizens of his congressional district,’ he said.

Holtorf said that Buck knew he had no chance of being reelected, so he decided to quit rather than run for reelection.

‘I don't think Ken Buck is going to be welcomed back in Colorado. He's going to have a very unwelcome return.’

As a military veteran who did two tours in Afghanistan and as a third-generation rancher, Holtorf has five years experience in the State legislature and believes he’s the right kind of politician that voters in Eastern Colorado want.

‘I get back to, you know, no nonsense conservative. I grew up in the country. I grew up with the code of the West and I grew up with good old country values,’ he said. ‘And you know, integrity, honesty, making a deal on a handshake those those values still ring true, where I live and also say what you mean and mean what you say.‘

Deborah Flora: Former radio host and parent activist 

Conservative radio host Deborah Flora was among the first candidates who got into the race, once it was clear that Buck was not going to run for another term. 

In order to run, however, she had to give up her local radio show on the Salem Radio Network she had hosted for 12 years.

In recent years, Flora got more involved in political activism, focusing on parental rights in education. She also produced a documentary on the issue with her husband titled ‘Whose Children Are They’ to tackle the education issue.

Flora said she also did not get a call from Boebert before she announced her decision to switch congressional districts.

She expected that Trump would endorse Boebert, she says, but that voters in the district would make their own decision.

‘I respect the president, but respectfully, I think he made the wrong call on this,’ she said.

In recent years, Flora got more involved in political activism, focusing on parental rights in education

While Holtorf and Sonnenberg are ranchers from the plains of Eastern Colorado, Flora is from Parker, Colorado, in Douglas County, a growing commuter town south of Denver.

Colorado’s 4th district was redistricted in 2022, pulling in more suburban voters.

Flora believes the new voters in the district will be looking for a more serious Republican without the same personal baggage as Boebert.

After Boebert decided to get in the race, Flores adjusted her campaign slogan to, ‘a conservative you can be proud of,’ a subtle way to remind voters of her less dramatic temperament.

Flora makes the case that Colorado Republicans need a candidate who could appeal to a wider demographic in the more populated parts of the district, not someone reliant on ‘soundbites and celebrity.’

‘I fight on principles and policies, not on personalities, and that's the difference people I think are getting very tired of personalities that are alienating so many,’ she said.

She says she was never a conservative ‘flamethrower,’ even as a conservative radio host, but rather a ‘diehard supporter of the Constitution.’

‘My goal is to persuade people to grow the movement of freedom without compromising on principle, instead of flame-throwing,’ she said.

Flora is a Republican who has watched sadly as the Colorado Republican Party has devolved into petty personal attacks and infighting, and losing more and more influence in the state.

She believes the growing number of suburban voter in Douglas County would have no problem voting for a Republican, but only if the candidates stuck to the issues.

‘They don't have a problem with our principals they have a problem with our personalities,’ she said. ‘We have to be willing to persuade and be passionate, not purge and purify and all of that, which is a lot of what's happening.’

That’s not to say she’s not traveling across the Eastern plains and visiting the less-populated areas of the district to make her case.

Flora boasts she’s already visited and traveled across 21 Counties in the district, already putting 8,000 miles on her car during her campaign.

She’s tired of the back-and-forth infighting and purity tests between Republican candidates on conservative issues, comparing it to similar infighting on the left.

‘We’re not the ones that say everybody has to agree 100 percent on everything,’ she said. ‘That's really wokism.’

The current state of the race demonstrates the fractured Republican Party, as few candidates are willing to step aside and endorse their rivals to combat Boebert.

Rep. Mike Lynch is in the race, even though he resigned in January his position as Colorado House Minority leader after he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

Other candidates include businessman Chris Phelan, former state Sen. Ted Harvey, and Peter Yu.