PUEBLO COUNTY, Colo. — Lauren Boebert’s rise to conservative prominence in Colorado politics is a unique one.

Never holding political office before, the Republican Boebert is running for Colorado’s third U.S Congressional seat, a seat long held by Republican Rep. Scott Tipton. Boebert beat the five-term Congressman in the June primary. Her challenger is a Former State Legislator and County Commissioner, Diane Mitsch Bush, a Democrat.

Boebert’s rise to political prominence comes in three parts. The first, her restaurant: Shooter’s Bar and Grille, gained national attention for its wait staff carrying firearms on their sides.

Second, was when she took on then-presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke at a rally in Denver. At the time O’Rourke was touting a gun buyback program as part of his platform, saying “hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15…”

At the rally, Boebert told him “hell no.”

Third, in defiance of state public health orders at the time, she opened her famed restaurant, garnering a short revocation of her license to operate.

“Pro-gun” is one of her key issues. While her website lacks specific policy proposals or policies she supports, it says Boebert is “PRO-FREEDOM, PRO-GUNS, PRO-CONSTITUTION, PRO-ENERGY, PRO-LIFE…”

That stance carries to how she believes the COVID-19 pandemic where she says “government needs to step back and trust it’s people.”

“What I would like to see in some sort of COVID relief package is, first of all, stick to the topic,” Boebert explained. “I would like to see germaneness whenever were identifying this and stick to COVID. Helping people and businesses through no fault of their own are without work and their businesses are shutting down. We don’t need to see the Kennedy Center getting millions of dollars. But I think the best stimulus package, is to reopen America. We can safely and responsibly open America and get back to work.”

For health care more generally, Boebert vehemently opposes a single-payer or medicare-for-all system. She said she won’t vote on anything that restricts people’s choice in insurance though won’t say if she will work to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, should it still be in place in the next Congress.

“We’ll see what happens when I get to Congress but, right now my focus is the American people and making sure there is coverage and making sure that people with preexisting conditions are covered,” she said.

Her husband, Jayson, works in oil and gas fields and Boebert has a strong support for extraction industries.

As with forest management, she supports rescinding protections for federal wilderness land. She believes it will help extraction and forest management.

“Six billion dead standing trees has a lot to do with the forest fires that we’re seeing all across the Western United States,” Boebert added. “Do humans have a role to play in climate? Sure. We are always interrupting nature, but that’s part of our role is to interrupt nature and we need to be responsible and make sure we’re doing that in the best way, the most environmentally-friendly way.”

Following her upset in the June Primary, much of the national and regional attention media outlets gave her, was over her ties to the baseless conspiracy, QAnon. The conspiracy claims groups of political elites are kidnapping children and drinking their blood for immortality. She has attributed her knowledge of the group to her mother, but in the interview with FOX21, walked that back.

“I’m not a follower of QAnon,” Boebert said as she ended the interview. “My mom is not a supporter of QAnon, she just talked to me about it one time.”

Thursday, FOX21 interviews the Democrat running for Colorado’s Third Congressional Seat, Diane Mitsch Bush.