AURORA | The partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans showed itself in a new way altogether Tuesday night in Colorado.
While eager voters for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders overflowed in many of their designated caucus locations for Colorado’s part in Super Tuesday nominating contests, Republicans had far more sedate proceedings across town with no presidential poll to speak of.
At Overland High School in Aurora, the line of Democratic caucusgoers stretched down the block and some waited more than a half hour to get in.
Jeff Moser, the site manager at Overland, said organizers were expecting about 1,300 people to attend. That’s fewer than in 2008 when there were about 2,000 at the school, but Moser said it still would make the site the party’s busiest in Arapahoe County.
Among the voters waiting in line outside before the start was 25-year-old Celia Ibarra. Ibarra said this would be her first caucus and she was planning to support Sen. Bernie Sanders, though she said she likes Hillary Clinton as well.
She said she didn’t expect tempers to flare between Sanders backers and Clinton backers.
“I think Democrats at least have respect with each other,” she said.
Inside, at a table in the school’s cafeteria, early-arriving caucusgoers in precinct 404 waited as the crowd trickled in.
Joan McDonald said she planned to throw her support behind Clinton, just as she did eight years ago.
“I wanted her eight years ago, I wanted her four years ago, and I want her now,” she said.
Across the table, Amy Nelson said she planned to back Sanders, but likes both candidates.
“If Hillary gets elected I would be happy, too,” she said.
On the other side of the cafeteria, at the precinct 438 table, Sanders backers Jeff and Catie Deutsch said they waited close to a half hour to get in the door. Even if the wait had been longer, the couple said they wouldn’t have had a problem waiting.
“This matters,” Jeff Deutsch said.
Before the voting started, a handful of local candidates made their pitch to some of the caucusgoers. State Sen. Nancy Todd told a crowd from several precincts gathered in a lecture hall that they should be happy that the Democratic primary process hasn’t been as bruising as the GOP race has been.
“They are a party in great disarray, which speaks well for us this year,” she said.
In a history classroom, voters from precinct 419 gathered and separated Sanders supporters on one side and Clinton backers on the other. The close-to-even split left a small gap between the sides.
Kunle Taiwo, the precinct captain, encouraged the caucusgoers to still chat with their friends who might back a different candidate.
“Just remember, you can talk to your friends across the aisle, it’s okay,” he said to laughs.
Sanders defeated Clinton in Colorado’s Democratic presidential caucus, a nonbinding poll that nevertheless gives the Vermont senator an important boost in his quest for the Democratic nomination.
In other parts of Colorado, many waited in line well beyond 30 minutes to get into their caucus locations, and in Boulder County hundreds of Democratic voters were initially turned away.
Lara Lee Hullinghorst, the chair of the county’s Democratic Party, told the Daily Camera that Colorado Democrats might better be served by a primary election, saying that it was ludicrous that people couldn’t participate Tuesday.
Colorado’s political parties used to hold primaries. They changed to caucuses after the 2000 election to save an estimated $3 million per primary.
Quiet night for GOP, mostly
For Colorado Republican voters in 2016, all politics is still local.
When election time comes, the pundits and thinkpiece writers regularly come to Arapahoe County and Aurora to ask how the purplest of bellwether spots in the nation will dictate the race to come.
But on Tuesday night, one of many GOP gathering sites across Aurora had no effective answer for the presidential race.
About two dozen precincts worth of voters convened March 1 at Mrachek Middle School to take part in the democratic process, but their preference in the once unwieldy but now seemingly fateful Republican presidential primary was an afterthought, with no binding straw poll to add their voices to the early nominating process.
Even as the clock clicked past 7:10 p.m., you could still find ample parking in the modestly sized lot at the school, a stark contrast to the snaking lines of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters outside Democratic caucus locations elsewhere in town.
Few caucusgoers wore any candidate-specific garb, presidential or local, beyond one man sporting a shirt emblazoned with “TRUMP” across the front.
As news rolled in via Twitter and cable news of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz securing victories, Republicans at Mrachek — many of them admitting to being first-time caucus attendees — mostly stopped by former City Councilman Bob Broom’s precinct table to chat. Others simply sorted through their delegate nomination forms and campaign literature from U.S. Senate hopefuls Jerry Eller and Peggy Littleton.
First-time caucus-goer Doug Schuck of Cherry Hills Village says the presidential contest got him interested in the first place. The Donald Trump supporter says he was disappointed that he wasn’t be able to cast a vote.
Even Republicans who don’t mind the party’s decision say the presidential race brought them out.
June Fuller of Englewood says she wants to get a sense of where the GOP is going as a whole. She is a Trump opponent and says party members must band together to stop “this terrible tsunami.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.