EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated March 13, 2026 to reflect that Colorado GOP Chairperson Brita Horn has resigned, after Jurinsky made comments on KNUS and this story was first published.
AURORA | Radio talk show comments Wednesday by former Aurora Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, alleging 2025 election interference, drew a sharp rebuke from Arapahoe County Clerk Joan Lopez.
Jurinsky, a Republican, appeared Wednesday on the far-right 710 KNUS Jeff and Bill radio talk show. She has been a regular guest on the show since being elected to city council in 2021. Jurinsky lost her bid for re-election to her at-large seat last year to Democrats.
Show host Jeff Hunt asked Jurinsky why she thought she lost the race, especially after having raised and spent far more campaign money than her Democratic challengers, Rob Andrews and Alli Jackson.
Jurinsky said she saw voter fatigue as part of the problem. County records show that the approximate 36% voter turnout last year is consistent with odd-year elections, focusing primarily on municipal and school board races. The 2024 General Election drew a record 86% of registered voters in Arapahoe County to vote their ballots.
Jurinsky also cited data that Democrats outnumber Republicans in Aurora. Currently, Aurora is home to about 75,000 registered Democrats and 42,000 registered Republicans. There are 134,000 unaffiliated voters in the city, according to county election records.
Jurinsky said what she described as close ties to Donald Trump also worked against her in her bid for re-election.
“Democrats outnumber Republicans, and you have to be able to separate yourself from President Trump,” Jurinsky said.
She said she was surprised at her loss, in part, because so many political pundits expected Jurinsky and other Republicans to win, running against Democrats with little campaign money or name recognition.
Voters, however, soundly defeated Jurinsky and fellow Republicans Steve Sundberg, Amsalu Kassaw and Marsha Berzins.
“I think what they did is they just sat for hours and hours and hours and made phone calls,” Jurinsky said. “I think they chased ballots.”
Jurinsky also said Democratic Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder Joan Lopez helped elect Aurora Democrats to the city council.
“I also heard that Joan Lopez was sending out text messages to folks who hadn’t returned their ballots,” Jurinsky said. “Now I didn’t return my ballot until the very end, up until Election Day, I didn’t get a text message asking me if I was going to return my ballot. So maybe she was only sending out text messages to one political party.”
She then said she was speculating about who got the texts.
The comments drew a sharp rebuke later in the day from Lopez.
“The Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder takes its role as a bipartisan steward of the election process seriously, and we will not allow unfounded claims to go unanswered,” Lopez said in a statement. “Not because we owe a defense, but because voters deserve the truth.”
Lopez said the clerk’s office doesn’t text any voter with reminders.
“Full stop,” Lopez said. “Any texts a voter may have received most likely came either from a political party communicating with its own registered members, or from BallotTrax — a Colorado Secretary of State service that notifies voters when their ballot has been mailed, received, and counted.”
BallotTrax notifications are only sent to voters who request and register for the service, Lopez said. “The County Clerk’s office plays no role in either.”
Jurinsky also inaccurately said, “it’s no secret that (Colorado Democratic Secretary of State) Jenna Griswold sent out 30,000 ballots to illegals to vote. I mean, 30,000 ballots, that changes the outcome of a city council race.”
Griswold admitted that in 2022, her office mistakenly sent out informational postcards to about 30,000 people telling them they might be eligible to vote. Many of the postcards were wrongly sent to non-citizens in the gaffe. Anyone receiving the postcards, however, would have had to provide the usual documentation needed to register to vote. The postcards were not ballots, secretary of state officials said at the time.
Jurinsky did not specifically say what her political plans are for the near or far future, except to say she’d been asked by unnamed Republicans to take control of the state Republican Party through the 2026 election cycle.
Jurinsky said she is a strong advocate of the GOP proposed SAVE Act, which would nationalize elections, require a voter ID and end Colorado’s mail-ballot election system
Current GOP Chairperson Brita Horn announced this week, after Jurinsky appeared on the radio talk show, that she would resign as chairperson after months of controversy, according to reports in the Colorado Sun.
Jurinsky said she would consider the GOP position should Horn step down or be removed from the party’s top job.
Jurinsky did not commit on the show to running for another office, except to say she’d been asked to run for her “house district” seat or even secretary of state.
She did not rule out trying to regain her city council seat.
“Well, first of all, I don’t like to lose,” Jurinsky said. “I don’t take kindly to that, and I certainly don’t like to lose to a drunk whose son spits at our police officers.”
Jusinky was referring to Andrews, who on Jan. 17 was arrested and accused by police of drunken driving. Andrews’ blood-alcohol level was reported to be 0.252, more than three times the legal limit for a charge of driving drunk.
Police bodycam video of the arrest shows a man in the cab of the pickup truck Andrews was driving, identified as Andrews’ stepson, spitting out an open truck window as an Aurora police officer questions him.
“So I would say my fight, my fight still exists,” Jurisnky said. “It remains.”
Oh, Danielle…you lost because of your lies about gangs controlling Aurora and so many other things. And maybe, because you’re just a B.
Aurora’s last election wasn’t a sweeping mandate; it was a narrow win from a thin slice of the electorate. The victors only won a majority of the relatively few people who voted, not a majority of Aurora’s families, small‑business owners, and taxpayers. When two‑thirds of eligible voters sit out, organized factions fill the vacuum.
The activist left understood that and treated a low‑turnout municipal election like it mattered, while many center‑right and working‑class voters stayed home. They didn’t win because their ideas became mainstream; they won because they showed up. Meanwhile, both Clerk Joan Lopez and Secretary of State Jena Griswold carry tarnished reputations with many voters after years of partisan controversy and questions about transparency, further weakening trust in the system.
Now Aurora is living with the consequences of a far‑left council majority: policies that are pro‑encampment instead of pro‑neighborhood, soft‑on‑crime instead of focused on victims, and eager for new taxes and fees that squeeze working families and seniors. On top of that, Councilman Rob Andrews is already facing serious drinking‑and‑influence concerns, raising doubts about his judgment and fitness to lead.
Conservatives should admit they lost this round—but low‑turnout, fragile wins built on extreme policies and shaky personal conduct are an opening, not a death sentence. If Aurora’s common‑sense majority registers, checks their information, and actually votes in the next city election, they can still take this city back.
Weak. And lame.
Has Ms Jurinsky considered that she may have lost the election because voters looked at her voting record and decided they didn’t like what they saw? This interference claim sounds as if it were taken directly from President T’s strategy book. The whole time she was in office, all I heard were complaints about her decisions.