AURORA, Colo. — It is shaping up to be one of the closest elections in Aurora history.
Former Congressman Mike Coffman, in his quest to be the next mayor of Aurora, leads his opponent Omar Montgomery by 273 votes as the counting wrapped up Thursday night.
Coffman has 26,201 votes as of Thursday night. Omar Montgomery has 25,928.
While the Montgomery campaign acknowledges nearly all the votes have been counted now in Aurora, they are not conceding.
“We are going to ensure that every vote gets counted. We owe it to our community,” Montgomery said Thursday night.
An automatic recount has not been triggered — that margin would need to be 131 votes.
The reason there is no concession is because in Arapahoe County, there are 1,000 ballots with issues.
Not all of the ballots in Arapahoe are from people who live in Aurora. However, the Montgomery campaign will reach out to the impacted voters to see if they wish to fix their ballot.
Most likely, the biggest issue with the outstanding ballots is a missing signature.
Coffman is a former Republican congressman. Montgomery is a Democratic-backed candidate. The two have very different visions for Aurora, so the stakes are high.
Coffman stopped by the FOX31 studios to discuss his vision for Aurora, should the results hold, earlier this week.