Former U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman declared victory as mayor of Aurora on the steps of City Hall on Thursday afternoon — nine days after Election Day — while calling for an investigation into the errors and delays in the electoral process.
As of late afternoon Thursday, the Colorado secretary of state’s office showed Coffman with a 215-vote lead over Omar Montgomery, president of Aurora’s NAACP chapter, out of nearly 75,000 ballots counted — just outside the automatic recount threshold.
Arapahoe, Adams and Douglas counties, all of which are home to parts of Aurora, have completed their counts, spokespeople for their respective elections offices told The Denver Post.
“The city of Aurora has been my hometown for the past 55 years, and I’m honored to receive a vote of confidence, by one of the most diverse cities in America, to be their next mayor and to help shape its future — a future focused on solving our transportation challenges, creating jobs and reducing the crime rate to make Aurora one of the safest cities in America,” Coffman said in front of approximately three dozen supporters on the west steps of City Hall.
Montgomery’s campaign said the candidate is waiting for all votes to be finalized and will make a statement Friday.
While Coffman held a substantial lead on election night, the margin narrowed to fewer than 300 votes as thousands of ballots continued to be tallied through the end of last week. Going into last weekend, the three counties still had hundreds of Aurora ballots with signature and identification discrepancies to be cured, or corrected, so neither campaign would declare victory or concede defeat.
On Thursday, Coffman criticized the lengthy vote count and printing errors that occurred in Arapahoe and Adams counties.
“An incredible amount of errors were made in this election,” he said. “I hope a full analysis and full investigation is done by the secretary of state’s office.”
The race was caught up in some additional drama late last week, when Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold accused the Postal Service of failing to deliver 828 ballots in Denver and Arapahoe County until Election Day. She said 664 of those ballots were meant for Aurora voters.
The Postal Service said the ballots weren’t received by mail carriers until that day.
The nail-biter of an election marks a political comeback of sorts for Coffman, who lost his bid for re-election to the U.S. House a year ago, after having successfully defended the seat five times in previous election cycles.
Montgomery was one of three African-American candidates in the contest for the top political seat in Aurora, one of the most diverse cities in Colorado.
The race became a nearly $1.2 million undertaking — and that’s just the dollars raised and reported by the candidates. About half that total — or just shy of $600,000 — was collected by Coffman’s campaign.
Coffman, a Republican, is scheduled to be sworn in Dec. 2. He will take charge of a City Council that will be decidedly more liberal than the one in power now, given the victories of several challengers who narrowly ousted incumbents.
He also will have to deal with ongoing tumult during City Council meetings, where for the last few weeks protesters objecting to immigration policy and police conduct have shown up to chant and disrupt the proceedings.
On how he will maintain control of public meetings once he takes office, Coffman simply stated: “I will have a much larger gavel.”
The other candidates in the race finished well behind the two top vote-getters. Former Aurora Councilman Ryan Frazier took 16% of the vote, Councilwoman Marsha Berzins claimed nearly 11%, and Renie Peterson, a former councilwoman, had less than 2% of the tally.
Tiffany Grays ran as a write-in candidate for mayor. Nineteen voters backed a write-in candidate in the Nov. 5 election.
