Who Is Jake Bockenfeld? The Republican for Douglas County Commissioner District 1

Two sentences frame the Republican running for Douglas County's open commissioner seat. The first is his own slogan: Douglas County should remain "a north star in a state that has lost its way." The second he said on the radio on September 4, about people moving here from Denver and Aurora. "They're like locusts, in a way."

He has since called that a figure of speech. Here is the rest of him.

The resume he runs on

"I'm not a career politician; my experience in the private sector is what sets me apart," his site says, and the biography is built to make that point. After the University of Northern Colorado he went into medical manufacturing, where he says he led a team of 32 through a plant closure and managed the outsourcing of production lines. When the company offered to move him to Illinois, he stayed in Douglas County.

During the pandemic he was a supply chain manager for what he calls a major healthcare provider. Then, in his own telling, "when faced with a mandate that conflicted with my personal convictions, I made the difficult decision to leave the profession I had spent years building and stand by my principles." Today he runs commercial operations for a concrete manufacturer in the county.

His politics are inherited. He grew up in Arapahoe County, where his father Rod served as a county commissioner from 2004 to 2016 before winning a statehouse seat. He and his wife Kaylan moved to Douglas County in 2013 because, he says, it still looked like the Colorado he grew up in.

Where he stands

His site lists three priorities. Public safety is first: continued support for law enforcement, and a pledge to "fight to ensure every school, including public charter schools, has a dedicated School Resource Officer." School choice is second, and note the framing, because commissioners do not run schools: he would "work collaboratively with parents and the school district to ensure planning and zoning policies support a diverse array of educational opportunities." That is a land use lever, and a real one. Fiscal responsibility is third, defined as prioritizing parks, open space and infrastructure maintenance, plus "limited, responsible growth that preserves the character of Douglas County."

There are no endorsements listed, no issue papers, and no position anywhere on his site about the question sharing his ballot line.

The expansion he opposes

That question is Questions 200, 201 and 1A, which would take the board from three seats to five. Bockenfeld told radio host Jeff Hunt where he lands: "my stance on is more government is never a good thing. It's never helped us. Being a limited government conservative, I don't believe that adding more government is going to solve our problems. It's just going to increase our taxes."

That is a candidate for a three-member board arguing against being one of five: a defensible conservative position, and a convenient one.

The locusts remark

The same interview, on the KNUS morning show on September 4, produced the line that made the news. Hunt asked whether people leaving Lakewood and Aurora for Douglas County understand that conservative leadership built what they are moving to. Bockenfeld: "I don't think people do realize that, because when they do come to this community, they bring the policies with them that destroy the community they're leaving. They're like locusts, in a way, and I don't think it's intentional."

Asked by the Colorado Times Recorder what he meant, he said he had used "a figure of speech" that "maybe came off wrong," and restated it: "you want to come to Douglas County because of the way of living and how it's been led. That's great, but then don't come in and bring policies that made where you're leaving the way they are." Pressed on which policies, he named tax increases, bigger government and high density housing, which he said "inherently does increase crime rates."

The awkwardness is that he is one of the arrivals, from Arapahoe County in 2013. His answer is that Arapahoe was a conservative county when he was growing up in it.

How he got on the ballot

The Douglas County Republican Party's own recap called Commissioner District 1 "the most closely watched county race" at the March assembly. Bockenfeld took 194 delegate votes to Parker councilman John Diak's 138. Both cleared the 30 percent threshold, so both advanced, and the fight moved to June.

He won it by 11 points, 27,315 to 21,596 in the county's final official results. Colorado Politics reported that his message on fiscal responsibility, school choice and public safety resonated with Republican voters. The other number in those results: Irene Bonham, with no opponent and nothing to decide, drew 41,828 Democratic votes.

The money, and his own party's scorecard

Through July 30, per TRACER, Bockenfeld had raised $27,371 and spent $27,035, leaving $336 on hand. That is a county campaign run on a shoestring, and the primary ate it.

Douglas County Votes, a candidate comparison site paid for by the Douglas County Republican Central Committee, labels him "Our Pick" and casts him as a private sector operations manager focused on public safety, fiscal responsibility, school choice and responsible growth. That is the party's case for him, in the party's own words.

What District 1 covers

The county's commissioner district map puts District 1 in the northeast quadrant: Parker, the Interstate 25 corridor at the north end of the county, and the open country east to the Elbert County line. Highlands Ranch and Roxborough are District 3; Castle Rock and everything south is District 2. It matters less than it sounds. As the county itself puts it, commissioners "must live in their district but are elected countywide," so every Douglas County voter decides this seat.

More: the race against Irene Bonham, what Questions 200, 201 and 1A would do, and every race and measure on your ballot. We do not endorse candidates. Campaigns can send corrections to hello@discoverdougco.com.