The challenger to U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton is touting winning the top spot on the ballot for the June 30 Republican primary as proof voters are looking for new energy and a fresh face in Congress.

“This absolutely is important and indicative of where the voters are. This doesn’t happen very frequently. We put a five-term incumbent on the bottom of the ballot,” Lauren Boebert said.

Boebert, who has gained notoriety for open-carrying her Glock 9 mm and as owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, where servers also open-carry, earned top placement on the ballot by earning the backing of 56% of the delegates to Tipton’s 40% in an email vote.

The email vote was held in place of the 3rd Congressional District Republican Assembly, which had been scheduled for April 17 in Broomfield, but was canceled because of COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings of people.

“The delegates who vote do their research before they decided who they want at the top of the ballot. These are people who are committed with their time, their efforts and often financially for their candidate, and I think it’s a great sign,” she said Monday in an interview with The Durango Herald.

Campaigning during the COVID-19 pandemic now is largely relegated to social media, telephone calls and mailers, and Boebert said Facebook events she’s held have attracted tens of thousands of people.

Boebert said her strategy is to connect with 50,000 voters through social media and telephone calls in the next 70 days, in place of traditional in-person campaign events.

“My favorite part of the campaign is connecting with people in real life, so I hope we can get back to holding events, but in some ways I think I’m reaching more people on social media and with telephone calls. We can devote more time to one-on-one conversations,” she said.

Tipton issued a news release Thursday slamming congressional Democrats for obstructing efforts to refund the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided $349 billion in funding to small businesses hurt by shutdowns, social-distancing rules and other measures taken to limit the spread of COVID-19.

In the news release, Tipton said, “Because of the unprecedented scale of the closures across the U.S., the demand for emergency loans has quickly outpaced the amount of money initially passed. The solution is for Congress to act quickly to replenish that program so businesses still waiting for funds can get what they need to survive. Yet, congressional Democrats wasted a week holding this program hostage as they attempt to pass additional money for unrelated programs that are still fully funded.”

But Boebert slammed Tipton for failing to fight hard enough for more PPP funding.

“His efforts to provide funding for PPP were insufficient. He’s on the Small Business Committee, and he didn’t put up a fight for more funding, when everyone knew the program was underfunded. It was exhausted in less than two weeks,” Boebert said.

Tipton’s campaign had not returned an email seeking comment for this story as of 2:45 p.m. Monday.

According to the Federal Election Commission, as of March 31, Tipton had total contributions of $835,562, total expenditures of $373,445 and $625,938 cash on hand.

Boebert had $67,168 in contributions, $38,615 in expenditures and $25,552 cash on hand.

parmijo@durangoherald.com