Copyright The Denver Post
Liberals attempting to form a majority on the Aurora City Council have endured several election cycles of despair. But that all changed in the blink of an eye Tuesday night when five progressive candidates — and zero conservatives — appeared headed to victory. “It was simply shock,” Gianina Horton, one of four new faces coming to the council on Dec. 1, told The Denver Post on Wednesday. With progressive incumbent Alison Coombs not in contention Tuesday, the five victors, including another incumbent, will increase the council’s left-leaning representation to six on the 11-member body if the results hold. Some ballots remained outstanding Wednesday evening. Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican former member of Congress, said the power shift at the ballot box largely reflected what happened in 2017, the year after Donald Trump — now early in his second term — won his first presidential election. “The nonpartisan local elections across much of the country went to progressives who were motivated to go to the polls to vent their frustrations,” he wrote in a text late Tuesday night. “We’ll have to see if that’s the case nationally, but if feels like it tonight.” Democrats scored resounding victories across the country Tuesday, while closer to home, liberal-backed measures — more money for school meals and nearly $1 billion dollars for infrastructure investment in Denver — prevailed. Since Coffman won the mayor’s race six years ago, liberal voices on the Aurora council have been in the muted minority. And things looked difficult for left-leaning hopefuls headed into Tuesday’s election, as they found themselves battling against a tidal wave of outside money supporting conservative candidates. (Officially, candidates run for council seats without party affiliations.) But as of late Wednesday afternoon, results from the Colorado Secretary of State’s website showed definitive leads holding for five progressive candidates. In the at-large contest, Rob Andrews and Alli Jackson were the top two vote-getters, at 26.1% and 25.7%, respectively. That means the tenure of conservative firebrand Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky — who was running third, at 22.1% — is likely over. Jurinsky made national headlines during last year’s presidential race when Aurora exploded into the larger debate over immigration. Fellow incumbent Amsalu Kassaw, a conservative who has held his seat for less than a year, was in fourth place out of five at-large candidates. In Ward II, Amy Wiles held on to a 7-point lead over conservative incumbent Councilman Steve Sunberg. And in Ward III, incumbent progressive Councilman Ruben Medina enjoyed a massive lead over Marsha Berzins, a well-known conservative voice in Aurora who previously served on the council for a dozen years. Attempts to reach Andrews, Wiles and Jurinsky weren’t successful Wednesday. Horton, the newly elected council member, works for the Colorado Department of Safety as a reducing racial and ethnic disparities coordinator and has lived in Aurora for the last four years. “We’re going to show up, we’re going to problem solve,” she said. She and her new colleagues will join a body on Dec. 1 that has been through the wringer as of late, with frequent protests over the May 2024 killing of Kilyn Lewis, an unarmed Black man, by Aurora police disrupting proceedings and the council moving to remote quarters to conduct city business on numerous occasions. The council has met virtually since June, citing a lawsuit filed over the shooting, but it plans to resume in-person meetings in mid-November. The officer who shot Lewis, who was being sought by police in an attempted murder case out of Denver, was cleared last year by the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, as well as by the Aurora Police Department. Horton, 33, said she can bring her expertise to bear in her new position. “We’ll be looking at our police department and see where we can put in a mechanism of transparency and accountability,” she said. “There’s a responsibility of council members to acknowledge when the system has failed.” Coffman, who is midway through his second term as mayor, said he would do his best to see eye to eye with his new council colleagues — no matter the makeup of the body. “I will work hard to find common ground with the new progressive majority over the next two years,” he said.
