Aurora City Councilmember Juan Marcano, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, announced Sunday that he would challenge Republican Mayor Mike Coffman as part of a Democratic slate that is also aiming to flip the the City Council this November in this populous Colorado city.
Coffman, who served five terms in the U.S. House before losing to Democrat Jason Crow in 2018, has confirmed he’ll be seeking re-election. There is no primary or runoff in this nonpartisan contest: Coffman himself won the 2019 mayor’s race 35.7-35.4 against Democrat Omar Montgomery.
That same election did see Democrats achieve a historic 5-5 edge on the City Council, an 11-person body that includes the mayor and 10 council members and has long been dominated by Republicans; the final seat is held by Angela Lawson, an independent who often voted with the Democrats before that election. However, Republicans regained a 7-3 majority in 2021, with Lawson now part of the conservative bloc. Marcano, who called the results a "gut punch," added, "Aurora has been dominated by conservatives for at least a half-century and unfortunately, that will continue for at least another two years." (This item has been updated to reflect that the mayor is a member of the City Council.)
Marcano and his allies, though, are hoping that 2023 will finally be the year that progressives take power in a community that Bolts Magazine's Alex Burness wrote last year has “greater racial and ethnic diversity than any other city in the state.” Half of the City Council is up every two years, and Marcano’s slate includes a candidate for each of the five seats on the ballot. The mayor is tasked with breaking any ties: Coffman used this power last year to pass a bill to ban anyone from camping on public property unless they have permission, a policy Marcano predicted “will not get people off the streets.”
Marcano also told Burness last November that if Democrats prevail at the ballot box, he’d like to advance a referendum to move municipal elections to even-numbered years and make them officially partisan contests. “They know that if we had the opportunity to actually have more attention shown to municipal elections, coinciding with when more people are turning out, that they would likely not prevail, to put it politely,” he said of conservatives. “They’re relying on low turnout and the disproportionate white, wealthy and conservative voters that turn out for municipal elections.”
One of his Republican colleagues, Dustin Zvonek, acknowledged that Democrats would win if Marcano had his way. Zvonek, who opposes the plan, said, “If you’re just about getting partisan majorities, I understand why you’d want to do this.” He continued, “You can say there are more people that vote overall, so that’s better. But I guess it depends on what you’re looking for.”
