Ad campaign targeting Rep. Lauren Boebert launching in Pueblo; organizers say more to come
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
An ad campaign featuring a Pueblo veteran and targeting some policies of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert is launching in the Pueblo area.
The campaign is being organized by a group called Rocky Mountain Values, a so-called dark money group founded in 2019 that has previously produced ads going after Republican politicians.
Rocky Mountain Values is a political nonprofit organization registered with the Internal Revenue Service. Because it’s registered as a nonprofit, the organization is not required to disclose its donors.
Political nonprofits are also not allowed to explicitly advocate for one specific candidate over another — but can run ad campaigns that are issue-based.
The ad blitz in the Pueblo area is costing Rocky Mountain Values $300,000, according to the organization’s spokesperson, Amber Miller. The campaign includes TV segments and radio, digital and mail advertisements.
Campaign goes after Boebert’s positions on health care, Social Security
A 30-second ad features Pueblo veteran Jerry Solano talking about how Medicare helped him cover two open-heart surgeries.
“Without Medicare, I would’ve never been able to take care of that myself and I probably wouldn’t be here today,” Solano says in the ad.
He says Boebert has voted against lowering prescription drug costs and has supported a plan to gut Social Security. The ad ends by displaying the phone number for Boebert’s Pueblo district office and urges people to reach out to her.
More on Lauren Boebert: Congresswoman Lauren Boebert talks energy, bills and birds in Pueblo
At a launch event for the ad blitz held Thursday at the office of Colorado WINS in downtown Pueblo, Solano was joined by Jamie Vigil and Sol Sandoval to speak about Boebert’s record in Congress.
Vigil has been battling cancer for over a decade. She said Boebert has sided with big drug corporations and has worked against lowering health care costs.
“For a lot of us, health care coverage is a matter of life and death — I can't understand why Boebert keeps voting against our health care and not taking care of the people she represents, like myself,” Vigil said.
Some of Boebert’s votes against health care coverage have been tied to omnibus bills, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, during her first term in Congress. When Republicans regained a slim majority after the 2022 midterms, Boebert was one of a few holdouts in confirming House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, partially to secure rule changes for how bills can be introduced in Congress.
Sandoval, who was closely defeated by Adam Frisch in the 2022 Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District of Colorado, talked about her previous experience working for the Pueblo County Department of Human Services.
She recalled how she saw seniors wait hours in a line to get food assistance and heard about how families stretch food stamps to make sure they have enough food on the table.
“To watch our Representative, Lauren Boebert, constantly undermine these programs that help Puebloans is simply inhumane,” Sandoval said.
Who voted against the debt ceiling bill in the House? These 117 lawmakers opposed it
Fundraising heating up in Congressional District 3
Although the 2024 election is a year and a half away, Boebert’s Democratic challenger in 2022, Adam Frisch, has already launched his campaign and raised more money than Boebert so far this year.
Frisch has raised nearly $1.75 million, and Boebert has raised $763,726, according to the most recent available data that includes fundraising through March 31.
Frisch lost by less than 550 votes after days of tense counting when the outcome was unclear last November.
Most pundits around the country thought Boebert would handily win reelection in her heavily Republican-leaning district — and national Democratic groups didn’t run many ads or do much fundraising.
Frisch has previously called out Democratic donors for not paying enough attention to the race.
Justin Lamorte, the executive director of Rocky Mountain Values, said the organization is going to launch other locally based campaigns targeting Boebert in other communities around Colorado’s 3rd District.
The Pueblo campaign is just the first, he said.
Anna Lynn Winfrey is a reporter at the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com or on Twitter, @annalynnfrey.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Ad campaign targeting Rep. Lauren Boebert launching in Pueblo
