SUPER TUESDAY COLORADO: Aurora and Colo. caucuses focus on Dems

EDITOR’S NOTE: Check back often tonight for Aurora and Colorado caucus updates, and follow us tonight on Twitter @AuroraPols or follow #COcaucus

AURORA | The partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans showed itself in a new way altogether Tuesday night in Colorado, resulting often in sheer chaos across Aurora, and much of the metro area.

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.

THE LATEST:

8:40 p.m. – BIG DEM CROWD AT OVERLAND

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.

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8:40 p.m.

Several dozen voters are waiting outside Boulder High School nearly two hours after getting in line for the Democratic caucuses.

Celeste Landry of the Boulder County Democratic Party says party officials are trying to ensure everyone gets a chance to vote before the caucuses close at 9 p.m.

Some voters told Landry they got in line 15 minutes before the caucuses opened at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Landry says about 20 Democratic precincts were holding caucuses at the high school.

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8:27 p.m. – ALL QUIET ON THE GOP FRONT IN AURORA

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 Turmp 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.

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8:05 p.m.

Hundreds of people have lined up outside Boulder High School for the Democratic caucuses.

Many, but not all, are students at the University of Colorado.

Alayna Bell is a 22-year-old political science major who is caucusing for Bernie Sanders. She says Sanders has shown that Americans are looking for an independent-minded president not bound to the establishment.

Retiree Raymond Dakko says Hillary Clinton is the only candidate who can bring people together.

Hundreds of caucus-goers were waiting to be admitted to the school an hour after caucusing officially began Tuesday.

Celeste Landry is a Boulder County election official who says the crowds show a lot of excitement about a hot presidential race and a Supreme Court vacancy.

Republicans in Congress vow to take no action on anyone President Barack Obama nominates to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

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7:45 p.m.

Supporters of Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are turning out in force at some Denver and Boulder precincts.

Molly Ison sat in a camping chair in an around-the-block line waiting to caucus for Sanders at a central Denver middle school.

Ison says she likes Sanders’ focus on economic equality.

Cole Kauffman, a 32-year-old nurse, was also caucusing for Sanders. But he had no illusions about the Vermont senator’s chances of winning the nomination.

He says he’s supporting Sanders in the hope that it pulls Clinton to the left.

Kauffman’s wife, Elena Harman, is one of the few in the liberal neighborhood wearing a Clinton sticker. She says she doesn’t believe Sanders is prepared to be commander in chief.

___

7:20 p.m.

Some Republicans gathering in Colorado are frustrated that the party chose not to hold a presidential caucus.

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 is disappointed that he won’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.”

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5:25 p.m.

These have been long weeks for Jacob Lawrence-Simon, who’s volunteered for the Bernie Sanders campaign on a 9 a.m.-to-2 a.m. schedule.

Lawrence-Simon is a software developer for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden. On Tuesday, he was hanging notices on doors, reminding voters to caucus.

Lawrence-Simon says he supports Sanders because of his views on gay rights, a higher minimum wage and his “desire to not go to war.”

Lawrence-Simon was busy later Tuesday helping coordinate about 20 volunteers and about a half dozen paid staff. They were at Sanders’ Denver headquarters in an unassuming strip mall that includes a barber shop and an Ethiopian restaurant.

Volunteers were busy calling voters to remind them to caucus. The campaign had a hotline to answer questions about the process.

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2:45 a.m.

Colorado may provide Bernie Sanders his best chance yet to win in the West. But a sustained push by Hillary Clinton has the state’s Democrats unsure who will prevail in Tuesday’s caucuses.

The Democratic presidential contest is the top draw.

That’s because Colorado Republicans are not taking straw poll votes for president. They broke from recent tradition in response to national GOP rules that could have left their delegates voiceless at the national convention.

Colorado plays a relatively minor role in nomination contests in either party. Its caucuses are basically thousands of neighborhood straw polls, where small groups of party members start choosing delegates for county or congressional-district gatherings.

It’s just the first step toward sending party members to the national conventions.

The nonbinding caucuses will give momentum to the Democratic victor in this battleground state come November.