The political worlds of Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and former President Donald Trump are set to collide once again.
Trump this week vowed to make a campaign stop in Aurora in the coming weeks as part of his exaggerated claims about the influence of a Venezuelan gang in the city.
“You may never see me again,” Trump said at a rally, joking about how dangerous Aurora is.
The former president has said the Venezuelan gang has taken over the “whole town” and that his massive deportation plan will begin in Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, where he has said without evidence that Haitian immigrants are eating pets.
If Trump, running for a second term as president, makes good on his promise – no firm plans had been made as of Thursday – it will mark a reunion of sorts for two men with a rocky history.
In 2018, Coffman, a Republican, lost his seat after five terms in Congress in large part because of Trump’s unpopularity in Colorado. Coffman did his best to keep Trump at arm’s length, but 6th Congressional District voters still booted him from office, choosing Democrat Jason Crow by 11 percentage points. Crow has held the seat ever since and is expected to cruise to reelection this year.
Trump added insult to injury in the aftermath of Coffman’s loss.
“Too bad, Mike,” Trump, then president, said at a news conference where he blasted members of Congress who kept their distance from him and then lost in the 2018 midterms.
Coffman and Trump are meeting on the political stage once again as Trump repeats the lie that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has taken over Aurora. Trump even mentioned it earlier this month during a nationally televised presidential debate as he also made false claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are eating cats and dogs.
Trump has used Aurora and Springfield to attack Democrats on immigration.
While there have been a handful of members of the gang arrested in the city, claims that they have taken control have either been exaggerated or totally debunked. “Based on our initial investigative work, we believe reports of TdA influence in Aurora are isolated,” Aurora police said in a statement.
In an interview Thursday with The Colorado Sun, Coffman said he welcomed Trump’s visit as an opportunity to set the record straight and show the candidate that “we’ve dealt with the situation from a law enforcement perspective.”
“I think it will be an opportunity to change the narrative for the city,” Coffman said, adding that he’d like to meet with Trump and set up a briefing for him with police.
Coffman, who initially amplified some of the falsehoods, is now trying to protect his city’s image amid a national spotlight.
Coffman and Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, a conservative ally of the mayor, last week issued a statement saying that the city has not been taken over and that claims of the gang’s activity have been overstated.
“I think it is damaging,” Coffman told The Sun of the national image of Aurora being painted by Trump and others on the right. “There was a point in time where there certainly was a problem in a couple of apartment complexes. We’ve since cleaned that problem up, identified the individuals responsible and are moving forward with arrests.”
As for any role Coffman may have had in perpetuating the image, “I just relayed what I was told by law enforcement.” But he says that was a snapshot in time.
“Clearly, the situation has changed,” he said.
The city and its police department said they haven’t been made aware of Trump’s plans or heard from his campaign. Republican leaders in the state also haven’t gotten any information about a potential Trump stop in Colorado, where a recent poll showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris by 15 percentage points.
The Morning Consult poll, which appears to be the first public survey in Colorado since Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, was conducted from Aug. 30 to Sept. 8. In 2020 Trump lost in Colorado to Joe Biden by 13.5 percentage points. Biden led Trump by similar margins in 2020 polls in Colorado conducted at roughly the same point in the cycle as the recent Morning Consult survey.
Trump hasn’t made a public appearance in Colorado since February 2020, when he held a rally in Colorado Springs. He recently attended at a private campaign fundraiser in Aspen.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Windsor Republican running for reelection in the 4th Congressional District, welcomed the potential visit. She’s been endorsed by Trump.
“I am thrilled to see President Trump announce he’s coming to Colorado, where the influx of illegal aliens to places like Aurora and Denver has been unacceptable and unsustainable,” she said in a written statement.
If Trump holds a rally in Aurora, Coffman said he won’t be there.
“I’m not a rally-type person,” he said.
The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.
