Marta Loachamin has won the tight Democratic primary race for Boulder County commissioner District 2 and will face Republican James T. Crowder on the November ballot.
Crowder ran unopposed in the primary.
Loachamin and Crowder will face off for the seat currently held by Deb Gardner, who is term-limited. Gardner, whose terms expires in January, endorsed Loachamin in the primary.
The latest Boulder County Elections Division results, updated Wednesday evening, show Loachamin holding a more than 3 percentage point edge over state Rep. Jonathan Singer, with 51.57% of votes to Singer’s 48.43%.
Loachamin, in a Wednesday night news release declaring her victory, said her experience “as a cultural broker fighting for housing, education, resiliency and economic mobility for over 20 years” would inform her work for Boulder County.
“I believe that my life’s work is connecting people of all walks of life to come together to solve problems — whether in business, schools or neighborhoods. I am honored to have the support of so many Boulder County residents in bringing this experience into the county commissioner’s role,” Loachamin stated in the release. “I look forward to continuing to meet with people of all different backgrounds from now until the November General Election and beyond to ensure that all voices are heard in Boulder County.”
She added, “I also want to thank my opponent, Jonathan Singer. We both had to grapple with how to run a campaign during a pandemic and I appreciate his willingness to participate in new ways. I thank him for his past service and hope he will continue his work to support Boulder County.”
If elected in November, Loachamin would be the first person of color elected to a countywide office in Boulder County, according to the news release.
Loachamin’s lead, which amounts to 2,531 votes, is big enough not to trigger an automatic recount.
The equation to find the recount threshold, per the Colorado Secretary of State's Office, lines out like this: The difference between the highest number of votes cast (the winning candidate) and the next highest number of votes cast (the runner-up) is less than or equal to half of 1% of the highest votes cast. Loachamin received 41,445 total votes to Singer’s 38,924.
A total of 102,851 ballots were cast in Boulder County in Tuesday’s primary, according to the Elections Division.
A record-breaking 1,577,347 ballots were returned statewide as of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, which makes 2020 state primary turnout “easily the largest of any state primary in Colorado’s history.”
