AURORA | Rob Andrews has called off his bid for Aurora mayor, leaving Councilmember Juan Marcano as the most prominent Democratic challenger to incumbent Mike Coffman.
Andrews said Tuesday that he decided to pull out to avoid splitting the vote and defer to other candidates who “did a lot of work prior to getting in the race.”
“That’s not the most politically correct thing to say, but I think each one of them had done a lot of work, and for me, I’m going to go and do more work in the community as best I can,” he said.
“I think Aurora is at a critical point, and political posturing is just not important right now. I think this race is about what’s going to happen in the next four years of Aurora. And I want to be a part of that. Ending the candidacy doesn’t mean I’m not going to be a part of that. It just means I’m going to be a part of that in a different way.”
Andrews is a former pro-football player for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League who shifted his focus to social entrepreneurship and became the president and CEO of the Denver-based nonprofit CommunityWork after an unsuccessful bid for Colorado Springs City Council in 2009.
On his campaign website, he identified public safety and building trust between Aurora residents and the police department as a top priority. Other priorities included promoting affordable housing as well as job preparation and placement services.
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.
Coffman’s priorities as mayor have included reducing street homelessness, which led him to introduce a ban on camping and policy outline last year. In a news release, he said he also hopes to focus on public safety in his next term, reducing crime by adequately funding the city’s police department.
Marcano, a registered Democrat affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, was raised in Texas and worked as an architectural designer before stepping back to focus on his elected role.
He 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.”
Kirk Denem Manzanares, a Democrat registered to vote in Arapahoe County, has also filed campaign finance paperwork to run for mayor. No other information about Manzanares’ campaign was available at press time, and he has not reported any fundraising activities.
Campaign finance records filed with the city indicate that, as of last week, Coffman had received $109,743 in campaign contributions, Marcano $64,607 and Andrews $27,663.
Aurora’s municipal election will take place Nov. 7.
Coffman won the last mayoral election because we Democrats were too stupid not to dilute our votes among multiple candidates. My bet is he is relying on this again. Can we be smart enough not to let this happen again? Likely not, and since we don’t have a runoff, we will again be stuck with a Republican attempting to become king in a largely liberal city.
Actually, conservatives (Frazier and Berzins) bled off 27% of likely Coffman voters between them. Renie Petersen took away a paltry <2% from Democrat Omar Montgomery.
This assumes that you know the voters who voted for Ryan and Marsha were registered Republicans and you know the voter tabs for turnout that year by party. If you don’t, you might want to check your own facts.
We are watching Mayor Coffman’s, election effort now akin to the Titanic fiasco as it slowly takes on more water. As new the guy and potential contender Kirk Manzanares, starts his political campaign Aurora perhaps will now have a choice of someone with some business minded ideas.
Nice attempt at diversion. Manzanares isn’t a contender.
Thank you Mr Andrews for smart thinking. Until we can get ranked choice voting it has to be a head to head race. Splitting the electorate means someone winning without a majority.
Thank you!!
I agree 100% with Doug that Aurora desperately needs Ranked Choice Voting– and he and I rarely agree.
The perpetual stalemate we suffer can be traced to a recurring theme in pretty much every candidate’s campaign — including those of both Coffman and Marcano. Partisan domination takes priority over everything. No. Sorry.
RCV puts a candidate’s performance front and center by diluting the vote-buying power of the wealthy donor’s checkbook. Right now, buying an election in Aurora is a real steal for the wealthy oligarch-developers. That bargain goes away when there is a true horse race. Ditto state and federal races (Manchin ’24!)
In addition to RCV, Aurorans needs to get serious about matching the full-time duties and desired experience of our elected council with a reasonable full-time salary. The #1 reason: Way too many highly qualified candidates who would run for council don’t because they need to feed their families. We’re left with a far smaller pool with only left- and right-wing extremists– often strong on ideological passion but woefully short on experience. Note the architectural designer who is now voting on complex budget issues who had zero budget experience or financial education prior to his election.
America’s been duped into believing our two-party system can’t or shouldn’t be improved. That’s an illusion of the first order but we’re S L O W L Y figuring it out. Eventually, market-based competition will prevail (Faster if Taylor Swift decides to register the Swifties as a political party).
If reading this makes you queasy let me offer you a suggestion. Keep your values but change your voter registration to Unaffiliated — at least through the 2024 election. Not only will your queaziness go away, but you’ll start seeing things far more clearly.
Manchin-Swift ’24 … if only she were old enough!
I’ve been scratching my head through the last couple of city council elections — harking back to a time when the political affiliation (R vs D) of candidates was widely unknown — as to what issues facing our city align with national/state politics. The last election (and likely this one) candidates will take positions on issues that cannot be dealt with at the city level (guns, abortion, LGBT rights, immigration, et al) especially given our city budget and sales tax funding (property tax was voted down) with a balanced budget mandated by charter.
Or rather, what does road maintenance, snow removal, growth, parks & rec, and most especially police/fire have to do with either the Democratic or Republican parties? Is there an inherent philosophy within the GOP more intolerant to the blight of homelessness within our community? Is it a basic premise of being a Democrat that the police should be defunded?
The priority of the city council should be issues about quality of life here in our city.
I look forward (with hope) to an election this fall centered on those issues in a non-national (or state) election year.