Lauren Opal Boebert ( BOH-bərt; née Roberts; born December 19, 1986) is an American politician, businesswoman, and gun rights activist serving as the U.S. representative for Colorado's 3rd congressional district since 2021. From 2013 to 2022, she owned Shooters Grill, a restaurant in Rifle, Colorado, where staff members were encouraged to carry firearms openly. A member of the Republican Party, Boebert is known for her gun rights advocacy. In the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in Colorado she unexpectedly defeated incumbent Scott Tipton in the primary election and went on to win the general election over Democratic nominee Diane Mitsch Bush, a former state representative. In Congress, Boebert has associated herself with the conservative Republican Study Committee, the right-wing Freedom Caucus, of which she became the communications chair in January 2022, and the pro-gun Second Amendment Caucus. She won reelection in 2022 by a narrow margin of 546 votes against former Aspen City Council member Adam Frisch. Boebert's views are broadly considered far-right. She is an ally and supporter of former president Donald Trump and supports Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and voted to overturn its results during the Electoral College vote count. She has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, has "celebrated attacks on the free press", and some academic and journalistic sources have investigated her ties to far-right extremism. She opposes transitioning to green energy, COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates, abortion, sex education, gender-affirming surgery for minors, and same-sex marriage. She advocates an isolationist foreign policy, but supports closer ties with Israel for religious reasons. A self-described born-again Christian, Boebert has said that she is "tired of this separation of church and state junk" and argued for greater church power and influence in government decision-making.