Paccione keeps seat

In a race with a wider margin than most, incumbent Democrat

Angie Paccione defeated Republican candidate Ed Haynes, holding her

seat in District 53 of the Colorado state House of

Representatives.

“This is outrageous. I can’t believe this,” Paccione said in a

speech at the Democratic Party headquarters in Larimer County. “We

turned it out. It is so exciting.”

Paccione, a Fort Collins resident who received her Ph.D. from

CSU in education and human resource studies in 1998, won 58.63

percent of the votes, while Haynes only managed 41.37 percent,

according to the final unofficial reports at www.larimer.org.

“Those numbers are pretty hard to ignore. It is a hard district

for a Republican,” Haynes said after conceding. “To Angie, my

congratulations.”

Outside of winning, Paccione was also happy to hear about the

voter turnout in Larimer County.

“I think the most outstanding thing is that 91 percent (by final

counts 93.94 percent) of the vote in Larimer County turned out.

That’s exciting,” she said.

Josh Metten, vice president of the CSU Democrats, believes

Paccione is the best representative for college students.

“She’s a charismatic individual. She’s shown that she really

cares about students,” Metten said. “She’s shown that the voice of

students is really important to her.”

Paccione resides in Fort Collins and said she is eager to

continue representing the town and CSU students.

“I’m willing to lead and continue to lead Fort Collins down at

the capitol,” Paccione said.

*Collegian reporters Brian Park and Lila Hickey contributed to

this story.