Remember Candi CdeBaca? She’s the Denver councilwoman who endorsed reparations, suggesting that white-owned businesses be taxed more to help minority ones. It wasn’t part of her re-election platform, claiming that her comments, which were clipped and posted by Libs of Tik Tok, were not an actual policy she plans to pursue on the city council. Yet, to avoid offending her progressive supporters, Ms. CdeBaca did clarify that she remained an advocate of this policy in her newsletter last month:
Denver City Council member Candi CdeBaca, who is running for re-election, says white owned businesses should be taxed extra and redistributed to black owned businesses. pic.twitter.com/s9JhSdAmtj
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 5, 2023
I participated in a candidate forum that was hosted by the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance of Denver, a coalition of local Black faith leaders, during which they asked all runoff candidates for mayor, City Council District 9, and City Council District 8 questions that were very specific to Denver's Black community. One of those questions was: Do you support reparations and their implementation at the local level? If so, how could that potentially look? We had two minutes to respond, and I answered the question directly. Yes, I support reparations, and I provided hypothetical examples of what that might look like at the local level, including considering how our special taxing districts for businesses (business improvement districts, or BIDs) could play a role. Every single candidate at the forum also stated that they supported some form of racial reparations.
A cherrypicked clip of my response was circulated with zero context by the far-right hate account, Libs of TikTok, encouraging its white nationalist followers to systematically harass and threaten me, and it was further amplified by initial media coverage, primarily within the far-right news ecosystem but also by some local news outlets. True to the Libs of TikTok playbook, thousands of abusive comments and threats flooded social media and emails and voicemails to both my campaign and our District 9 office over the weekend.
The video that was circulated is just a very small piece of information from a candidate forum that was taken completely out of context. My words were an on-the-spot response about what kind of structures already exist that could be considered in a conversation at the local level. It was not something I am proposing, and it is not something that was vetted by community.
But let's be clear: I do think reparations are necessary, both locally and nationally.
Whatever the case, the voters in her district thought it was time for a change because she lost her re-election bid this week in a landslide. It was a total blowout (via KDVR):
The District 9 council race between incumbent Candi CdeBaca and challenger Darrell Watson is notable as one of the biggest blowouts of the last decade.
CdeBaca lost by a 21.42-point margin. She got 39.29% of the vote while Watson got 60.71%.
Axios had a more detailed summary of the race:
Incumbent Candi CdeBaca is running into fierce opposition from challenger Darrell Watson in her re-election bid for Denver City Council.
State of play: CdeBaca — the first Democratic Socialist to hold a Denver council seat — defeated incumbent Albus Brooks in the 2019 election but her ninth district has shifted with redistricting to include new voters in Park Hill.
CdeBaca finished with 44% of the vote in April, just ahead of Watson who took 43% in a three-way race. With neither reaching 50%, the top two rivals must battle in the June 6 runoff election.
The district includes downtown, City Park, Five Points, Elyria Swansea and parts of Park Hill.
The intrigue: CdeBaca is often the lone "no" vote on council and her outspoken politics and controversies in her first term are making her a target from business leaders, who are backing Watson.
How it started How it’s going pic.twitter.com/m2VwD02doG
— Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) June 9, 2023
The far left aren’t serious people. Never have been, never will—don’t vote for them. If liberal Denver couldn’t stomach her, it was off the rails.
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