Democrats flip Albany County Commission

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Absentee ballots, a majority of all ballots cast, changed the outcome in several local races

Sue Ibarra
With a razor-thin margin, Albany County Democrat Sue Ibarra unseated Albany County Commission Chair Terri Jones Tuesday, bringing to a close one of the county’s most hotly contested races this cycle.

Ibarra will join Commissioner Pete Gosar to form a significant two-member Democratic coalition on the three-member board.

“I’m very happy to have come out on top and I want to acknowledge that I had a great campaign team that helped me all the way,” Ibarra said. “I had solid volunteers and just wonderful supporters in every way, both financially and in voting for me, throughout the Albany County community.”

New leadership could mean drastic changes in Albany County, where hot-button issues such as police reform, wind development and aquifer protection are front and center.

Albany County — “the state’s most infected community,” according to WyoFile — is also experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases. On election night, the county had 846 active cases, meaning more than 2% of the county population was currently sick.

“We need to get out from underneath COVID,” Ibarra said. “We need to put some policies in place or something where we beat this virus. Until we do, nothing is going to be returning to normalcy or allowing us to thrive.”

Ibarra added the commission could reexamine the western boundary of the Aquifer Protection Overlay Zone and will endeavor to keep the county functioning throughout the coming budget cuts.

Jones, Ibarra’s opponent, had downplayed the virus, calling it “totally politically motivated,” and claiming the left “wants the pandemic because they want to socially divide everyone.”

Jones was in the courthouse Tuesday to watch results come in, not wearing a mask and not socially distancing.

Ibarra’s 8,277 (44.2%) to 8,215 (43.8%) lead was close enough to trigger a recount, which occurs whenever the two highest vote-earners are within 1% of each other, Albany County Clerk Jackie Gonzales said.

Absentee and early ballots represented a majority of the ballots cast during this general election in Albany County. A full 64% (11,926 out of 18,739 ballots) were cast as absentee or early voting. These nearly 12,000 ballots were not counted until election night, so all precincts in the county reported their totals first.

This means that for about an hour, it looked as if Republicans had won up and down the ballot. But once absentee ballots were reported after 10 p.m., several — though certainly not all — races flipped in favor of Democrats, even for state house races.

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