Will the GOP stay in charge of a left- leaning city?
The upcoming city election in Denver draws lots of attention and with good reason. With a wide- open race for mayor and a long list of candidates, the upcoming vote could reshape Denver’s future. But next door, in the metro area’s “second city,” there’s also a big election that could have a lasting impact across the region.
Aurora voters this year will select a mayor, and five of their ten council members, including two of the four “at large” members elected citywide. Other council members represent “wards” in various parts of Aurora.
The election could shift political leadership in this sprawling city of 389,000, changing how it approaches such intractable problems as homelessness, crime and police, housing affordability and growth, water, and more.
All this concerns me since I recently moved back to Aurora after 24 years of living in Centennial. And, given its size and its status as a housing and employment center, Aurora’s future path and its economic, social and political health should be of concern across metro Denver.
Yet what I’ve seen so far is a city government that has a hard time finding common ground and at times descends into bickering at council meetings. As the city’s Sentinel news outlet reports: “Critical city council decisions have become hyper- partisan and polarizing, particularly in recent years.”
Unlike Denver, which will hold its city election April 4 with a possible runoff on June 6, Aurora’s election day isn’t until Nov. 7, so new candidates could emerge in the coming months. But already, the races are starting to take shape. And both current and future city leaders face a host of weighty issues:
· In Aurora, the 2019 death of Elijah Mcclain after a violent police encounter has been followed by protests, a blistering debate over police conduct, a consent decree with the state mandating reforms, a shortage of new police recruits, and a revolving door in Aurora’s policechief office.
· Aurora set a new record for violent crime last year, including 22 murders ( almost twice the pre- pandemic rate), 574 sex offenses, and 3,262 aggravated assaults.
· Aurora is about to lose its city manager, Jim Twombly — the city’s chief executive in its “council- manager” form of government under which the mayor’s authority is more limited than in Denver. The council
soon must find a successor.
· Aurora’s reservoirs are at half- capacity amid drought conditions, and the city is eying use restrictions.
• And Aurora leaders are debating how best to deal with homelessness. Some want the city, like its neighbor Denver, to take a “housing first” approach, setting few upfront conditions for people it helps. But current Mayor Mike Coffman says Aurora should “focus our resources on those that want to change their behavior” and adopt a “work first” policy.
But it’s difficult for Aurora leaders to reach lasting consensus on major policy issues because the political majority seems to swing back and forth with almost every election. Aggravating that volatility is that candidates in citywide races typically need just a fraction of the vote to win. And because city elections are held in oddnumbered years, with little else to vote on, turnout tends to be low
— just 31% of registered voters in 2021.
This year, the big question to be answered in Aurora’s election is: Will the city continue to be led by Coffman, a veteran Republican politician backed by a conservative majority on the council, or by a progressive mayor and council slate that recently stepped forward?
By several measures, Aurora leans to the left. Only 18% of its voters are registered Republicans, while 33% are Democrats ( with 48% unaffiliated). City voters favored Democrats in most recent federal and state elections, and nine of its 12 state legislators are Democrats.
It’s also more racially and ethnically diverse than Colorado as a whole: 29% Latino, 17% Black, 7% Asian American. These communities traditionally favor Democrats.
And yet, since the 2021 election, the city government has been dominated by Republicans or Gopleaning officials — Coffman plus six of the ten city council members, although the mayor’s office and city council officially are non- partisan.
Unlike Denver, where a runoff election is held if no mayoral candidate gets at least 50% of the vote in the general election, Aurora candidates for mayor and council win simply by receiving more votes than any other candidate, even if their total is well below 50%.
In 2019, Coffman — a former congressman and Colorado secretary of state — was elected mayor with a mere 35.7% of the total vote in a five- way race, topping second- place candidate Omar Montgomery, a Democrat and head of the NAACP’S Aurora chapter, by just 215 votes.
In Aurora, candidates for at- large council seats compete in one pool, with the top two vote- getters winning the two seats at stake in each election. Over the last two election cycles, in 2019 and 2021, no winning candidate for at- large seats received more than 23% of the total vote in six- person fields both years.
In 2021, impressive financial firepower — as well as a focus on crime and safety — helped conservatives capture a 6- 4 majority on what had been a more evenly split panel. And Republican Coffman can break ties in council votes.
One at- large council member elected in 2021 was Republican Dustin Zvonek, a former state director of the conservative Koch brothers’ advocacy group Americans for Prosperity. Colorado Rising State Action — a political group then headed by Michael Fields, another AFP alumnus — spent more than $ 600,000 to support “Aurorans for a Safe and Prosperous Future,” a 2021 council slate that included Zvonek and another winning Republican council candidate, Steve Sundberg, representing northeast Aurora. Republican Danielle Jurinsky also won an at- large seat that year.
With the GOP in control over the last two years, the council has approved a homeless campaign ban proposed by Coffman, and the majority pressured Twombly to fire Vanessa Wilson as police chief.
But this year, six Aurora Democrats have announced plans to run as a slate to try to wrest control of city government from the Republicans. Current Councilmember Juan Marcano, affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, will run for mayor against Coffman, who signaled in December that he plans to seek a second term. Marcano will be accompanied by five liberal council candidates for council seats.
Despite its problems, Aurora has a lot going for it, including its vibrant diversity, new employment centers at the Anschutz Medical Campus and the Gaylord Rockies Resort, a wide range of housing prices, and an exciting food and shopping destination at Stanley Marketplace.
Now what it needs is more unity in its city government — and that will require better voter participation this fall.