When Lauren Boebert put some blame on Hollywood for forcing her to switch Colorado districts in her reelection bid, she was just the latest in a long line of Republicans to target the industry and its lopsided support for the left.
Not a cycle goes by where some GOP candidate doesn’t attack Hollywood, with a donor pool that overwhelmingly backs Democrats.
Speaking over the weekend to Steve Bannon for his podcast, Boebert accused “Hollywood elites who are trying to buy my current district.” “It’s not just Aspen that the money is coming from,” she said. “It’s coming from Hollywood. When you have Barbra Streisand coming in and donating to the Democrat, when you have Ryan Reynolds coming in and donating to the Democrat, it shows you that Hollywood is trying to buy their way into Congress.”
Boebert was referring to Adam Frisch, the former Aspen city councilman who would have been her likely Democratic opponent in the general election. Frisch, who nearly beat Boebert in the 2022 midterms, raised about $8 million as of the end of September, far more than Boebert.
But last week, Boebert announced that she was switching districts, from Colorado’s 3rd to Colorado’s 4th, ostensibly on the premise that she will have better odds in an area that leans more heavily to Republicans.
Boebert told Bannon that switching districts would “shut down the money, the dark money, that was flowing into our district to try and purchase this seat,” as she had been a top Democratic target.
Frisch did get contributions from Streisand and Reynolds, who each gave $1,000 last spring, along with other Hollywood names like Rob Reiner, Tony Shaloub and Richard Kind. But according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Frisch has drawn a total of $75,583 from showbiz sources as of Sept. 30 — a significant sum, but still just a fraction of his overall haul. (His campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.)
That said, Boebert’s attack on her opponent for being bankrolled by the “Hollywood elites” is actually a pretty common tactic among Republicans, going back many, many cycles and with varying degrees of resonance.
For one, it gets media attention, more so than other industries — and here we are, guilty as charged. It also plays right into the culture wars: Boebert’s whole identity is tied up in that us vs. them appeal, particularly among rural voters.
While railing against the “elites” may have played well in maximizing support in the 3rd District’s rural areas vs. wealthy and celebrity filled Aspen, Boebert has a whole other challenge in making it through the primary in her new district, where she faces a large field of other Republican candidates.
As much as she may complain about the outside influence of money, Boebert by no means has limited herself to hometown donors, drawing contributions from outside-the-district celebrity figures like Jenny Craig (in the 2020 cycle), while Liberty Media’s John Malone, listed with a Florida address, gave the maximum $6,600 to her campaign last year.
In other words, they are elites of a different sort. But in Boebert’s newest challenge to hold on to a place in Congress, against other GOP rivals, she seems to be hoping that a few swipes at Hollywood will help her stand out from the crowd.
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