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August 15, 2023 01:16 PM UTC

ABC: Aurora Dems Unite To Take Down Mike Coffman

  • 9 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: The Aurora Sentinel:

Andrews’ exit leaves Marcano as the Democratic frontrunner and main challenger to Coffman, a Republican military veteran who boasts a lengthy resume in Colorado politics. Coffman was elected mayor in 2019 after losing his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives to Jason Crow…

[Marcano] said Andrews agreed to pull out of the race after the two talked one-on-one last week about the best way to defeat Coffman and ensure a Democratic majority on the council.

As a cautionary tale, Marcano described how Republican Marsha Berzins was elected to her Ward III council seat with about a third of the overall vote in 2017 after facing off against multiple Democrats.

“It’s just simple math at the end of the day,” Marcano said. “We have a lot of unmet needs throughout our community. Rob and I have a lot of shared values, and we both want to address those needs. … Aurora should have a progressive majority on City Council so we can start making the necessary investments in our community around child care, and affordable housing, and wages, and bottom-up economic development that will actually deliver a city where everyone can thrive.”

—–

 

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman with “Mini-Mike,” City Councillor Dustin Zvonek.

9NEWS’ Kyle Clark reported last night on a potentially significant development in the Aurora mayoral race–Rob Andrews, a registered Democrat and nonprofit director, is dropping out of the race and endorsing City Councilman Juan Marcano’s bid to unseat incumbent Republican Mayor Mike Coffman in this November’s most nominally nonpartisan of citywide elections.

Consolidation behind a single opponent is bad news for Coffman, who as readers know was elected to his seat in 2019 by the narrowest of margins in a five-way race. Since then, Coffman has plotted to solidify his grip on the city council by installing with controversially direct support a slate of conservative candidates that included Coffman’s former staffer Dustin Zvonek, followed by Coffman’s surreptitious effort this year to run a “strong mayor” ballot initiative with conservative dark money support. And it hasn’t been easy as the “Coffman majority” on the City Council embroiled itself in partisan grandstands over COVID-19 health measures and earned bad press over outrageous racist gaffes and embarrassing self-owns like declaring “you are not safe in Aurora,” which Coffman himself had to walk back on their behalf.

Coffman’s bold strategy for taking over the Aurora city government faces its greatest test this November. If Coffman wins re-election and gets his “strong mayor” initiative over the finish line, it’s a triumph that will continue to defy the state’s overall Democratic political evolution. But if the paradigm-changing results of this year’s mayoral election in Colorado Springs are any indicator, Mike Coffman could be in for a world of hurt in November.

This consolidation around Marcano is something that needed to happen to make that happen.

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9 thoughts on “ABC: Aurora Dems Unite To Take Down Mike Coffman”

  2. Consolidation of candidates in the nonpartisan race for Mayor so there is only ONE Democrat in opposition to Coffman seems like a good thing.

    Getting 100 signatures between August 9 and 29 doesn't seem like much of a "qualification" to be on the ballot – any chance of one or multiple Republican candidates.running against Coffman to contribute to a sense that REPUBLICANS 'R' REVOLTING?  I'd be ESPECIALLY amused if there were a MAGA candidate who wanted to run against Coffman and label him a RINO. 

    1. I'd love to see a hard boiled MAGA run to Coffman's right in the race.

      Where is Roger Edwards when the cause calls his name?

  3. Aurora is not a Dem-repub city.  I looked at the city as Democratic blocks, republican blocks, old school Dems, Hispanic, New Suburbans, People wanting Dems, and overall, where were the veterans and active duty.  Coffman is going to bring in the active duty and veteran/retiree votes unless Marcano can break that.  I do not know the percentage now, but back then almost one third of Aurora was active duty or veteran/retiree. 

  4. Aurora vote in 2019 allowed Mike Coffman to get into office with less than 40% of the vote.

    general election for Mayor of Aurora on November 5, 2019

    Candidate…………………% ……….Votes

    Mike Coffman ………..35.8………26,690

    Omar Montgomery …35.5………26,476

    Ryan Frazier ………….16.2……….12,063

    Marsha Berzins…..,…10.7…………8,015

    Renie Peterson…….,,…1.8…………1,369

    I'm not certain Coffman has gained new areas of support in the past 4 years.  With the "strong mayor" ruckus, I think he may well have lost some support.

     

    1. I agree the strong mayor thing has been an embarrassment for Coffman, and I'd guess it will hurt him somewhat in 2023.

      However, since this is a thread about consolidating behind one Dem candidate in Aurora, I was wondering about #s 3 and 4 in the 2019 race. Frazier has run a bunch of times as a Republican, and Berzins' last race was as a Republican for ArapCo Treasurer.

      Obviously the 2023 race will be different than 2019, but the numbers of the #3 and 4 finishers suggest to me that consolidated support behind Coffman could also pack some punch.

      1. The Aurora Sentinel's evening update described the state of the race this way:

        First up, there’s a seismic change again in the race for Aurora mayor. In June, Democrat Robert Andrews shook up the race when he announced he would run for mayor. That essentially created a three-way race among Republican incumbent Mike Coffman and Andrews' fellow Democrat Councilmember Juan Marcano. History would make a Coffman win likely with two Democrats splitting the liberal vote. That changed today when Democratic officials announced Andrews would drop out of the race and endorse Marcano. Reporter Max Levy has the story.

        That story is here.

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