Colorado Rep Lauren Boebert has been mocked online for declaring victory in her too-close-to-call race for re-election to the House of Representatives.
The MAGA Republican lawmaker is facing off against Democratic challenger Adam Frisch in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
As of Friday morning — 10 days after election day on 8 November — it looks likely that the race is headed to an automatic recount. With 99 per cent of votes now counted, the right-wing extremist is leading her Democratic opponent by just 551 votes or 0.16 percentage points.
An automatic recount is triggered if neither candidate has enough votes to win by a margin of more than 0.5 per cent. A recount must be completed by 13 December.
Nevertheless, the oft-controversial congresswoman posted a video on Thursday night declaring herself the winner.
“We won! I am so thankful for all of your support and I am so proud to be your Representative!” the Donald Trump ally and 2020 election denier tweeted.
Twitter was quick to respond.
“Uh no. You know it’s going to a recount, right?”
Twitter user Dustin Miller wrote: “You haven’t won yet. The race is so close that, in order to ensure election security and accuracy, an automatic recount is required by law.”
He added: “You do care about election security, right? And to have such a narrow margin in a region that was dominated by Trump…you lost, bigly.”
“I know math is difficult for you, but you’re within the mandatory recount percentage,” wrote another user.
“Not yet Bobo. The narrow margin means there has to be a recount according to Colorado law. But we all know that facts aren’t your strong suit,” read another post.
In the video, Rep Boebert does acknowledge the recount, despite having already claimed victory, but argues that past recounts in Colorado have resulted in far fewer votes being adjusted than anything that could affect the current result.
She also states that there are fewer than 200 votes left to count.
The closeness of the race captured national attention with Mr Frisch, a former currency trader and Aspen City Council member, polling well throughout the campaign.
Ms Boebert burst onto the political scene in 2019, confronting then-presidential hopeful Bet O’Rourke over gun rights.
The restaurant owner and mother-of-four then easily won the Republican primary in June 2020 despite her incumbent opponent Rep Scott Tipton having already been endorsed by Donald Trump.
At the general election in November of that year she won the district with 51.39 per cent of the vote to the Democratic Party candidate Diane Mitsch Bush’s 45.22 per cent.
