Daniel Herrera Carbajal ICT
Two Native candidates won their Colorado primary elections Tuesday, the last of the June primaries across the country.
Consuelo Redhorse, Navajo, won the Colorado House of Representatives District 13 Democratic primary with over 50 percent of the vote compared to opponent Chris Floyd with 49 percent. District 13 runs west of Denver and goes north to the Wyoming-Colorado border. The district was redrawn in 2023.
Gabriel Cervantes, descendent of the Coahuiltecan and Nahua peoples, prevailed in the state House District 31 Democratic primary. Cervantes won the race with more than 53 percent of the vote over his opponent Jacqueline Phillips who had 46 percent of the vote. District 31 is north of Denver and overlaps a small part of Thornton, Colorado.
Colorado is home to two federally recognized tribes: Southern Ute Tribe and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. Although, 48 tribal nations have historical ties to the state, according to the Denver City Council website.
2027 election
Two other Native candidates will be running for the Denver City Council in 2027.
If either candidate is elected they will be the first Native American to be on Denver City Council.
“Denver was a relocation city and we’ve never had a Native person serving on city council and we’ve got a lot of projects, a lot of issues in this community that really need help and I think an Indigenous perspective is important,” Teddy McCullough, Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, ICT at the Denver March Powwow in the spring.
McCullough is running for city council in district 8, which covers the Central Park, Northeast and part of Montebello neighborhoods.
Denver was one of many cities alongside Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles that Native Americans and Alaska Natives relocated to under the federal government’s urban Indian relocation program.
The purpose of the program was to assimilate Native people into mainstream American society by encouraging them to leave reservations for major cities with the promise of jobs.
Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand, Sicangu Lakota, who is also running for Denver City Council, said she is ready for the position.
“City council has existed for 100 years and we have never had a Native person in office – that would be crazy,” Maldonado Bad Hand told ICT. She’ll be on the ballot under the at-large, seat B role for city council.
More than 100,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives alone or in combination with another race live in Colorado, according to the 2020 Census. In Denver County almost 9,000 residents identify as American Indian and Alaska Native.
With that history and the concentration of Native people living in the Mile High city, McCullough says more needs to be done.
“There’s a lot going on in Denver and I think our leadership needs to reflect the people that we are serving,” McCullough said. “I’m going to neighborhood leaders and talking with them and seeing what issues they’re facing that they don’t feel like the city is addressing directly.”
Bad Hand agreed.
“Being Native is a political existence, I feel like I’ve been training for it my whole life,” she told ICT.
Jourdan Bennett-Begaye contributed to this report.
This story has been corrected to show that Teddy McCullough and Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand will have elections in 2027.
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