Bennito L. Kelty
Audio By Carbonatix
Aurora has a way of surprising people.
Even for people who grew up in Aurora, it was surprising to see the city thrust into the middle of last year’s presidential debate because of overblown stories of violent Venezuelan gangs.
In October 2024, Donald Trump came to Aurora, today a city of 100,000 foreign-born residents and 160 languages, to play into the anti-immigrant fervor that emerged after an embattled landlord said Venezuelan gangs had taken over the town. The once-and-future president even named his mass deportation plan Operation Aurora. And as soon as he was re-elected, he began rolling out that plan.
Aurora City Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky had earned a national profile by sounding the alarm on Tren de Aragua, and she was knighted by Trump himself to lead the transformation of Aurora into a conservative bastion right at liberal Denver’s doorstep. As a result, Westword named her to our People to Watch list in January, calling her “the face of Aurora.”
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So it was surprising to see her lose her re-election bid, finally conceding on the night of Wednesday, November 5.
“While last night’s election didn’t go the way we had hoped, I am deeply proud of the work we’ve accomplished together,” Jurinsky said on social media. “I have served my hometown and all of you with every ounce of passion, loyalty and heart that I have…..Now, God has a different plan in store, and that’s okay.”
She won’t be alone in exiting council chambers. Fellow conservative at-large councilmember Amsalu Kassaw also conceded with a message on social media late November 5.
“We gave it our all, a grassroots campaign filled with heart, hope and unity. The system and the numbers are not with us this time, yet our faith, spirit, and community remain strong,” Kassaw wrote. “I’m deeply proud of my team, our volunteers and every supporter who stood beside me.”
Republican councilmember Steve Sundberg was also losing his race as of late November 5. If he is ousted, too, progressives will be in the majority on Aurora City Council.
“Right” from the start
Aurora City Council is a nonpartisan, ten-person body, so it’s hard to determine when it last had a progressive majority. The mayor, which is also officially a nonpartisan position, has a vote on council, too, and Aurora’s mayors tend to be conservative. Current Mayor Mike Coffman, for example, was a Republican Congressman.
In 2017, then-councilmembers Nicole Johnston and Allison Hiltz were labeled “liberal trailblazers” who helped flip a conservative-dominant council that also included current Councilmember Crystal Murillo. That council wasn’t decidedly progressive, though, and it suffered plenty of five-five splits.
In 2020, at the end of Trump’s first term, the council couldn’t decide whether to allow local cooperation with ICE or declare itself a sanctuary city, and Coffman broke the tie by voting against it. In 2021, the council split on votes over Coffman’s urban camping ban and a proposal to allow marijuana lounges, which caused both measures to fail.
When Johnston resigned to take a job in Colorado Springs in June 2021, half of the councilmembers wanted Democrat Ryan Ross to fill her seat, and the other half wanted Republican sports-bar owner Steve Sundberg, who was elected to the spot officially that November.
In that election, Jurinsky and fellow conservative Dustin Zvonek picked up the at-large seats left behind by Hiltz, who exited politics to focus on her family, and Dave Gruber. Councilmember Ruben Medina, a progressive, took the slot opened when conservative Marsha Berzins left to run unsuccessfully for Arapahoe County Treasurer.
By 2022, Aurora City Council had a 6-4 conservative majority, as well as conservative Coffman to break any tie.
That majority gained some padding when Councilmember Juan Marcano ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2023 and gave up his seat. Councilwoman Stephanie Hancock, who is pro-Trump and campaigned on a law-and-order platform, won Marcano’s seat that year.
In June 2024, Councilmember Curtis Gardner announced that he would change his party affiliation from Republican to unaffiliated after the Colorado GOP ran anti-LGBTQ+ ads. The move did little to transform council, though, and Gardner is still considered a conservative, if more moderate, member.
In August 2024, the Venezuelan gang rumor took off, landing Jurinsky on popular social media channels, along with Fox News and Dr. Phil Primetime . Her appearances discussing how an influx of migrants into the metro area had ruined Aurora paved the way for Trump’s visit in October.
When Zvonek left his seat this January to work with the Common Sense Institute, a right-leaning think tank, Kassaw kept the council in a firmly pro-Trump position that favored laws tough on immigration, crime and homelessness. He was open about his job as an officer for GEO Group at the ICE detention center in Aurora, and even though he kept quieter than Jurinsky, they both talked about Trump’s mass deportation plan as a way to restore law and order in Aurora.
A New Direction
On Election Day, November 4, Aurora City Council had seven conservative reps plus Coffman to overrule the three lonely progressives — Medina, Murillo and Alison Coombs — who had been hanging on for four years. That conservative majority hoped to grow with the return of Berzins, who was running against Medina for her old seat.
Before the night was over though, it looked like the conservative majority was no more. Sundberg, Kassaw and Jurinsky were all losing to progressive candidates.
As of late November 5, Sundberg was about 800 votes shy of challenger, Amy Wiles while Jurinsky and Kassaw held the third and fourth positions in the at-large race, in which the top two candidates will win. Failed mayoral candidate and former Canadian football pro Rob Andrews is leading, followed by progressive young gun Alli Jackson. Jurinsky was nearly 4,000 votes behind Jackson, a gap she conceded she could not close.
As the vote now stands, Aurora City Council is about to convert to a 6-4 progressive majority. Gardner, Hancock, Angela Lawson and Francoise Bergan are the last conservatives left on the council, but only Hancock and Bergan are registered Republicans; the other two are unaffiliated. Coffman has just two more years left in his final term.
Over the past four years, the conservative majority overruled progressive positions on issues like the appointment of Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain, the switch to virtual meetings to avoid protesters upset with the death of Kilyn Lewis (that ends November 17), declaring Aurora a “non-sanctuary” city, jail time for shoplifters, and an ad campaign to stop people from giving change to the homeless.
The incoming progressives ran on promises of affordable housing, boosting small businesses and criminal justice reform, among other issues. Campaign promises are no guarantee of the council’s direction, though, and Aurora is never short of surprises.
