First off, we want to congratulate our co-chair and sister, Julie Bañuelos, for running. She accepted NO corporate dollars, NO donations from any special interest, and she actually RETURNED donations that came from fracking sympathizers and teacher’s union busters.
Some insights into the numbers:
We couldn’t be more proud of Julie, because she’s put the Denver Green Party on the map with the broad coalition of progressive, grassroots organizations that she pulled together. Julie got 24.28% of the vote, or 29,559 votes. This represents the highest vote totals in the party’s history in Denver, in a voting district that is essentially contiguous with Congressional District 1. The last citywide race for us was for CD1 in 2012, and Julie nearly QUINTUPLED those votes from Denver county alone. She did it spending less than 65 cents per vote, which is statistically unheard-of in modern politics. Via her outreach, we know that people who voted for her would not have voted at all, were she not on the ballot.
By comparison, the last statewide election vote totals were 36,805 or 1.3% of the statewide vote. In Denver county, the candidate got 5,770 votes, or 1.76%.
Even better, Julie’s candidacy caused an internecine war within the Denver Democrats, about whether to allow her to speak at their meetings or not. Except for one holdout, they did. And the Young Democrats forced the county party to make a rules change about it.
Julie is not finished advocating on behalf of families and students, so please follow her here.
THANK YOU, JULIE!!!