The First Poll of Boebert vs. Laubacher Is 45 to 40. The People Who Paid for It Want Her Gone.

Until this week there was no public poll of the 4th District race, and every number anyone used, ours included, was a model. Now there is one. Read the sponsor line before the topline.

The numbers

Among the 403 likely voters Impact Research reached, Lauren Boebert leads Eileen Laubacher 45 to 40, with Libertarian Douglas Mangeris at 9 and 6 percent undecided. With a 4.8-point margin of error on each number, a five-point lead is at the edge of what the poll can distinguish from a tie, and also at the edge of what it can distinguish from a ten-point race.

The parts the sponsor wants you to see are the ones about her, not the horse race. Boebert's favorability is 39 to 55, with 46 percent holding a "very unfavorable" view. Her job rating is 39 positive, 54 negative. Asked whether "too partisan" describes her, 60 percent said very or somewhat well. Those are weak numbers for an incumbent in a district that is otherwise behaving like a Republican one: the same respondents prefer a generic Republican for Congress 45 to 35 and put Mark Baisley ahead of John Hickenlooper 50 to 45 for Senate.

How to read a poll like this

Three cautions, in order of weight.

First, the sponsor. Invest in Tomorrow Coalition is not a neutral party; Politico reports it is backed by solar executives, has helped beat Republicans in primaries this year, and is now putting $1.5 million into ads against Boebert, the first of which is about the 2023 "Beetlejuice" ejection and says nothing about energy. Groups release the polls that help them. The Times lists this one with its partisan-sponsor label for that reason. That does not make the numbers wrong; it means you are seeing the ones they chose to publish.

Second, the firm. Impact Research polls for Democrats. Its CO-04 memo includes an "informed ballot" question, asked after respondents heard negative messaging about Boebert, in which Laubacher leads 42 to 39. That question is a test of whether the race can be moved by the ads the sponsor is about to run, not a measurement of where the race is.

Third, the sample. Four hundred and three people, surveyed two and a half weeks ago, before ballots went out. The memo has no county breakdown, so it says nothing directly about Douglas County, which casts about half the district's vote.

What survives those cautions: it is the first measurement of the race, it was reported by Politico, the Coloradoan and the Times' tracker, and nothing in it contradicts the ratings. Cook still has the district Solid Republican; Sabato and Decision Desk have it Likely Republican. A five-point lead for the incumbent with a 39 percent favorable rating is what "Likely Republican" looks like in a bad year for her party.

What it means for the Douglas County pages

Our Boebert analysis said that any public poll would be the first real test of its arithmetic, and named her Douglas County margin, the generic ballot and the October 15 money reports as the others. This poll neither confirms nor breaks it: the model needs a national swing of about ten points to bring the district inside two, and a sponsor-chosen survey with her at 45 is consistent with a swing of that size and with a smaller one. We have updated the analysis and the race page to carry the number.

Two other lines in the memo bear on races every Douglas County voter has. Among 4th District voters, Victor Marx edges Phil Weiser 46 to 45 for governor, and Mark Baisley, the state senator from this county, leads Hickenlooper 50 to 45. Those are subsamples of a district that voted Republican by 12 points in 2024, in a poll not built to measure either race, so treat them as texture. They are consistent with what our governor page expects: the 4th, and Douglas County in it, voting to the right of the state in both.

We do not endorse candidates. Campaigns can send corrections to hello@discoverdougco.com. More: every race and measure on your ballot.