QAnon Supporter Who Owns 'BBQ Restaurant Full of Guns' Crushes 5-Term Incumbent in GOP Primary

Lauren Boebert, a restaurateur and gun rights activist who has expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, took down fifth-term Republican congressman Rep. Scott Tipton in Colorado’s GOP primary election on Tuesday.

Shock result: Boebert handily defeated Tipton by 9 points, The New York Times reported.

• Despite President Donald Trump having endorsed Tipton early on, Boebert ran a campaign in which she questioned her opponent's pro-Trump bonafides.
• The border wall supporter slammed Tipton for his record on immigration and for co-sponsoring legislation that would allocate coronavirus aid spending to local governments.
• Boebert has also earned grassroots support among Trump’s base for her stance on coronavirus lockdown measures – she recently defied state coronavirus restrictions by refusing to turn away patrons from Shooter’s Grill, her gun-themed restaurant in Rifle, Colorado, where servers carry openly.

The reaction: Among her admirers, Boebert has gained a reputation as an uncompromising fighter willing to denounce political adversaries in the bluntest terms.

Liberals, however, reacted with horror after she clinched the primary on Tuesday night.

A deranged person, who believes in Q Anon, and owns a restaurant where everyone carries a firearm, just won a congressional primary in Colorado...

THIS IS TRUMP’S LEGACY—STUPIDITY

Wait until November. It ends. Help me make sure of it! https://t.co/c81QjdEA89

— Nate McMurray for Congress 2020 (@Nate_McMurray) July 1, 2020

Raw Story breaking news reporter Matthew Chapman said Boebert was “completely f---king insane.”

“She owns a BBQ restaurant full of guns that was fined for defying COVID orders. She has also spoken admirably of QAnon and the Branch Davidians,” he tweeted on Tuesday.

Charlie Pierce, a sportswriter and liberal pundit, accused Boebert of being “15 bulbs short of a chandelier.”

Holy batshit, Batman. This Lauren Boebert woman out in Colorado who beat Scott Tipton in the 3d CD Republican primary is about 15 bulbs short of a chandelier. She’s a Q Anon enthusiast, and runs an open-carry cafe -- which is an actual thing. Good lord.

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 1, 2020

The new GOP? Boebert’s victory will likely be viewed as another indication of the ideological and tactical shifts within the GOP, whose establishment in recent years has grappled with stiff challenges from populist factions.

• The National Republican Congressional Committee rejected the Democratic Congressional Committee’s calls to disavow Boebert.
• “We’ll get back to you when Cheri Bustos and the DCCC disavow dangerous conspiracy theorists like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff who have pushed without evidence their wild-eyed claims that the president of the United States of America is actually a secret Russian double agent under control of the Kremlin,” NRCC spokesman Bob Salera said in a statement.