Unaffiliated Aurora City Council candidate resists Democrat pressure to step down

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been edited from an earlier version to clarify Aaron Futrell’s comments during the Zoom meeting. Futrell said that when he dropped out of the city council race earlier this year, he did not feel pressured by Democrats to end his campaign.

AURORA | In a last-ditch effort to narrow the candidate pool in the Aurora at-large city council race, a handful of local Democrats attempted but failed to persuade an independent running candidate to withdraw from the November contest. 

“I’m independent,” Watson Gomes, at-large city council candidate, said. “We might align with a lot of things. I chose to be independent for a reason. Because I don’t like party ideology. I like to engage with people. I like to see different things, but also stay true to my core values and principles, and then defend what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Aurora is holding elections for three city council wards and two at-large seats in November. Two among the five candidates for the at-large seat win the election. There are two Republican incumbents running for the two at-large seats, two registered Democrats and Gomes, who is unaffiliated.

Although the city council races are not partisan, party politics still play a significant role in the actions of the Aurora City Council.

Currently, Republicans dominate the Aurora City Council. Democrats want to resume control of the board, and they see the two at-large seats as key. A common concern among non-partisan races is similar candidates “splitting” the vote, handing a victory to the opposition. 

In a partisan election, primary elections prevent candidates from splitting the vote. However, since non-partisan city council elections don’t have primaries, it’s not uncommon for candidates and their supporters to pressure each other to drop out when they share similar ideals, local political leaders say. 

They usually stick to registered party affiliation, though.

The pressure seemed to come after multiple liberal-leaning candidates appeared on Jeff Fard’s local Facebook streaming show, also known as “Brother Jeff,” and received criticism from the live comment section for having too many Democrat-leaning candidates running for the same seats.

Audience members voiced concerns about the Ward I and the at-large races having too many liberal-leaning candidates. The at-large race includes Republicans Danielle Jurinsky and Amsalu Kassaw, as well as Democrats Alli Jackson and Rob Andrews, along with Independent candidate Gomes.

Ward I had many more candidates attempting to run, but the number has since narrowed. There were four candidates running for the one seat, and two were Democrats, Gianina Horton and Leandra Steed.

The deadline for a candidate to have their name taken off the November ballot was Sept. 5, and Fard’s show was on Sept. 3. By Friday, Steed had stepped down from the race and had her name taken off the ballot.

Steed supporters, too, said Steed felt pressured to leave the race to ensure a Democrat gets elected. The seat is currently held by Democrat Crystal Murillo, who is not running for re-election.

In Ward I, there are also two independents, the Rev. Reid Hettich and Stephen Elkins, and one registered Democrat, Gianina Horton. 

There was also an attempt by the local Democrats to convince Gomes, an independent candidate, to step down on the day of the deadline. However, Gomes said that he would not do so, as he is not a Democrat and believes he will attract many more voters in the independent race. 

“If I drop right now, I am a big loser in this,” Gomes said. “I have a lot of people standing behind me. I cannot come right now, just make decisions and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m going to drop out of the race,’ and jeopardize all the work people put into me.”

Gomes said he felt confident in his campaign and that he believes he will win. He said he agreed with Democrats on many issues, but he also has a lot of views that can appeal to both parties, and that he has already persuaded many Ethiopians to vote for him instead of Kassaw, an Ethiopian immigrant. He said that, as a college professor, his running also means a great deal to his students. 

“I still have a strong belief I can win, even if I don’t win, this is a big win for me, because I’m not just doing this for me,” Gomes said.

Local party leaders say persuading multiple party candidates to drop out for the sake of a victory is a long-standing practice for both political parties. But it’s typically done through discussing campaign strategies, where candidates and those affiliated with a party compare their campaigns and attempt to convince the other candidate to step down, or else they will all lose. It’s generally not a public process.

The conversation with Gomes took place during a Zoom meeting attended by many people, including invited media, on the day of the ballot deadline. The conversation hastily shifted from multiple people trying to persuade Gomes that he would do better running in Ward IV next year against incumbent Republican Councilmember Stephanie Hancock.

Eventually the conversation escalated to one member, Kirk Manzanares, telling Gomes that it would be better for everyone if he just dropped out of the race. 

Others at the Zoom meeting talked about decisions to pull out of a crowded city council race for what they described as the good of the cause.

Former Aurora Human Relations Commission member Aaron Futrell told Gomes that deciding to drop out as a candidate earlier this year was the hardest decision he’s made, because he said he wanted to carry on the legacy of his grandmother, Edna Mosley, who was the first African American councilwoman on Aurora’s City Council. His grandfather, John Mosley, was also a well-known community leader.

“One of the hardest realities that I had to face is that it was not my time, and I should let someone else who had more resources and time basically take the reins, especially if they have the same values as me,” Futrell said to Gomes.

He told Gomes that Democrats have a better chance to claim more council seats by Gomes backing out of the race and “adding his supporters to either Alli’s or Rob’s campaign.” 

Although these were actions taken by registered Democrats, they were not undertaken by the Colorado Democratic Party or the Arapahoe County Democrats, which typically work with Aurora city council election candidates later in the election cycle, state and county Democrats said. 

The official Democratic Party, including the Arapahoe Democrats, is not permitted to directly ask candidates to step down, according to Melissa Garland, the chair of the Arapahoe Democrats.

After hearing criticisms from the audience about his comments during Fard’s show, Manzanares told the Sentinel after the Zoom meeting that he thinks that the election is critical, and that he regrets taking his plea to Gomes too far. 

“I feel like I rushed in like a stubborn bull, trying way too hard to get my way to what I thought was a good thing for the candidates that I like and plan to vote for,” Manzanares said. “I thought I was helping. I am now feeling that I don’t think it’s critical to narrow the candidate pool. However, I do think it’s important to work together and have a strategy for how we come together in November.”

Many Democratic-leaning members who joined in during Fard’s show, both in Aurora and throughout the metropolitan area, called this city council election critical because of what they say are extremist viewpoints of many of the Republican and Republican-leaning city council members. The city council members who are registered Republicans currently hold the majority of six seats on a 10-seat city council. Aurora’s residents are made up of 51% registered unaffiliated, 28% are registered Democrats and 19% are registered Republicans, according to Arapahoe County election officials. 

Critics of the far-right Republicans on the city council say they do not represent the majority of Aurora voters.

Fard asked candidates on his show why they felt this election was more critical than previous ones, and Democratic candidates Gianina Horton, Amy Wile and Alli Jackson said it boiled down to Republicans possibly winning nine out of 10 city council seats, pushing the dais ever further to the right. 

“If there is a worst-case scenario, nine of them, I don’t trust that Aurora city government is going to work for the people,” Horton said. “We know Jurinsky has set a tone. She has set a tone. Has used bullying, is very vindictive in her approach as an elected official, so we need to make sure we have quality leadership.”

Democratic candidates said Elkins, running in Ward I, would join the Republican bloc, despite being a registered independent, because he has been campaigning alongside the registered Republicans.

The city council race will be decided Nov. 4, and mail-in ballots are expected to be released toward the end of October.