¶ CD-4 candidate universe and OpenFEC source cluster, 2026-05-11
This source cluster starts the CD-4 candidate-corpus replication of the CO-05 structural civic scoring pipeline. The current official Colorado Secretary of State source lists three 2026 US House District 4 candidates: Eileen Laubacher, Jenna Preston as a Democratic write-in, and Lauren Boebert. OpenFEC records resolve all three to current CO-04 House candidate IDs and principal campaign committees.
This summary is a source spine, not a scoring recommendation. The evidence is strong enough to seed the candidate universe and campaign-finance intake, but not mature enough for candidate scoring, a public report, PDF production, or social-share assets.
The official/campaign capture package preserves the Colorado Secretary of State 2026 primary candidate list, the Colorado Democratic Party 2026 primary candidate page, campaign-controlled pages for Eileen Laubacher and Jenna Preston, and Rep. Lauren Boebert's official House pages. The OpenFEC package preserves candidate records, committee records, committee totals, and first-pass candidate-ID Schedule E checks for the three current candidates.
- Colorado SOS current ballot content for US House District 4 includes Eileen Laubacher, Jenna Preston as a write-in candidate, and Lauren Boebert.
- OpenFEC resolves:
- Lauren Boebert as candidate
H0CO03165, Republican, CO-04, incumbent, with LAUREN BOEBERT FOR CONGRESS / C00728238.
- Eileen Laubacher as candidate
H6CO04202, Democratic, CO-04, challenger, with EILEEN FOR COLORADO / C00904284.
- Jenna Preston as candidate
H6CO04228, Democratic, CO-04, challenger, with JENNA PRESTON FOR COLORADO / C00912212.
- Committee totals through March 31, 2026 show a large fundraising asymmetry: Laubacher has the largest receipts total in the retained first-pass capture, Boebert has incumbent committee totals plus other-committee contributions and transfers, and Preston has a smaller committee with debts owed by committee.
- Candidate-ID Schedule E checks returned 56 rows for Boebert and zero rows for Laubacher and Preston in this bounded first pass.
- The source cluster does not support final candidate scores.
- It does not prove donor influence, coordination, control, corruption, endorsement exchange, policy exchange, or candidate intent.
- It does not establish that Trisha Calvarese, Ike McCorkle, Deborah Flora, Jerry Sonnenberg, Richard Holtorf, or Peter Yu belong in the current 2026 scoring universe. Several are relevant historical 2024 CD-4 candidates or current-status leads, but the current SOS list controls this first-pass universe.
- It does not replace Schedule A receipts, Schedule B disbursements, filing images, JFC records, communication costs, electioneering communications, donor geography, employer/occupation analysis, or vendor normalization.
- The current CD-4 candidate universe is narrower than the historical seed list in the task prompt.
- Jenna Preston requires special handling because SOS lists her as a write-in candidate.
- Laubacher's receipts and spending scale are immediately score-relevant as campaign-capacity and donor-independence evidence, but the line-item layer must be normalized before any strong interpretation.
- Boebert's incumbent status means official governing records should carry more weight than campaign statements once roll calls, bill text, committee activity, and official releases are captured.
- Lauren Boebert
- Eileen Laubacher
- Jenna Preston
- Trisha Calvarese
- Eileen for Colorado
- Jenna Preston for Colorado
- Lauren Boebert for Congress
- Freedom Caucus Fund
- 2025-01-01: Start of Boebert committee totals coverage in the retained 2026 OpenFEC totals file.
- 2025-05-05: Start of Laubacher committee totals coverage and FEC committee registration period in the retained files.
- 2025-07-01: Start of Preston committee totals coverage in the retained files.
- 2026-03-31: Coverage end date for all retained committee totals.
- 2026-05-01: Colorado SOS page states the ballot content was certified to counties.
- 2026-05-05: Colorado SOS page last-updated date shown in the retained capture.
- 2026-05-11: Repo capture date for the first-pass CD-4 corpus.
| Source |
Target |
Mechanism |
Flow |
Evidence strength |
Source basis |
| Freedom Caucus Fund |
Lauren Boebert |
Schedule E independent expenditure |
money / campaign support |
candidate lead |
OpenFEC first-page Schedule E sample; full row normalization pending |
| Other political committees |
Lauren Boebert for Congress |
committee contributions |
money |
direct evidence |
OpenFEC committee totals |
| Individual contributors |
Eileen for Colorado |
contributions |
money |
direct evidence |
OpenFEC committee totals |
| Other political committees |
Eileen for Colorado |
committee contributions |
money |
direct evidence |
OpenFEC committee totals |
| Other political committees |
Jenna Preston for Colorado |
committee contributions |
money |
direct evidence |
OpenFEC committee totals |
These rows are money-flow or candidate-lead records only. They do not establish coordination, influence, control, sponsorship, corruption, or policy exchange.
- Candidate-universe volatility: current official ballot status differs from the wider historical CD-4 candidate list.
- Evidence asymmetry: Boebert has an incumbent official-record path; Laubacher has a large campaign-finance path; Preston has a write-in and thin-source-coverage path.
- Anti-corruption ceiling risk remains unresolved for all candidates until direct reform evidence or bounded negative searches are completed.
¶ Evidence limits and open questions
- Calvarese's current 2026 status needs direct confirmation if her exclusion becomes important to public-facing explanation.
- Preston's write-in status needs ballot-mechanics treatment before public comparison.
- Full campaign-finance normalization remains open.
- Public statements, debates, forums, interviews, questionnaires, and transcript sources remain largely undiscovered.
- Boebert official-record scoring requires a separate House Clerk / Congress.gov / official-release pass.
This summary supports the CD-4 corpus implementation report and the first-pass data artifacts under outputs/data/cd-4-candidate-corpus/. It should be superseded or updated after Schedule A/B normalization, transcript capture, source-summary expansion, and claim-check triage.