Dem opens bid for commission seat

Allison Hunter couldn’t stay out of a campaign fray for long.

The 43-year-old Democrat, who in December dropped out of her second bid for the state House District 15 seat, filed paperwork Tuesday that officially kicked off her campaign for the District 2 seat on the El Paso County Commission.

“A lot of people are desperate for a voice in the county and I can certainly tell that after even only two days,” Hunter said of the support she has received since informally announcing her candidacy at Saturday’s county Democratic Assembly.

Hunter, who ran unsuccessfully for the Legislature in 2006, pulled out of the state race three months ago after a Republican committee appointed Douglas Bruce to fill the vacant seat, giving him too great an advantage, she said, if she ran against him in November.

She also said the reality of being a single mother of two school-age children set in: traveling to Denver four months out of the year on little pay was out of the question.

The commission seat makes more sense for her family and county issues matter more to her, she said.

“On my side of town especially we worry a lot about water, and that is a conversation that comes up frequently,” Hunter said. “Plus the county social services. I know what it is like to be in the system, and it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fun and the technology was incredibly backwards.”

In her 2006 bid for the state House against now Sen. Bill Cadman, Hunter received 32 percent of the vote in the heavily Republican district.

Though she faces newly appointed and highly popular Commissioner Amy Lathen in November, Hunter is optimistic about her electability.

“I’m realistic but I’m hopeful, I think a lot of people have lost faith in the way Republicans choose people,” she said.

“I really think that this county is on the verge of a turnover.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0232 or carlyn.mitchell@gazette.com