Boebert's GOP rancher rival ditches campaign events to save heat-stricken cattle in crisis

For Colorado House candidate Richard Holtorf, political events must take a backseat in favor of tending to over 1,000 sun-scorched livestock. The retired U.S. Army Colonel and third-generation rancher who has been riding horses to work since he was 5 years old and serves as a General Assembly member — is pressing pause on his campaign events in his challenge against Rep. Lauren Boebert to represent the Centennial State in Washington D.C. “The water table has dropped and the pasture wells are not pumping water,” Holtorf's campaign official Rhonda Brandt told The Independent. “Richard has 1,000 cattle in the feedlot plus his own herd… the cattle have to have water, and the cattle come first.” She added: “If nothing else, he will be driving a water truck to keep thousands of from dying.” Brandt claimed Holtorf, who has been stumping in a cattle rig dotted with Trump signage, is the “only non-politician of the top 4 candidates” willing to call his service in the state legislature “secondary.” Mercury levels tipped past the mid-90s across the 4th district Monday — a day before voters will pick their Republican primary candidate. “He is still hauling water and now a bad prairie fire has broken out that he is helping to south of his ranch,” she told The Independent. “So not only is Richard a cattleman, water engineer, and water truck driver today, he is also a firefighter.” Boebert has tried to fend off scandal after she was ejected from a Denver theatre after being captured on security cameras vaping and getting handsy with a date during a production of "Beetlejuice" this year.