Perhaps the most surprising thing about last night's race for mayor in Denver is there were few surprises. Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough jumped out to early leads and appear to have secured the top spots, heading into a June runoff, just as pundits and observers anticipated. Here are some takeaways.
In this Colorado Conversations special episode, Denver Gazette editor Luige del Puerto talked to Jim Carpenter, Alan Salazar and Steve Welchert talked about the unofficial results of the Denver mayor's race, where candidates Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough appear to be headed for a runoff. Carpenter, co-founder of Freestone Strategies, a strategic public affairs firm, served as chief of staff to Gov. Bill Ritter and state director for U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar. Salazar, chief of staff to Mayor Michael Hancock, served as chief strategist for Gov. John Hickenlooper, and chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Mark Udall. Welchert, director of the Welchert Company, is a veteran political, policy and strategic communications counselor who served as legislative liaison for Gov. Richard D. Lamm.
'Establishment' candidates came out on top
In voting for Johnston and Brough, Denver voters picked two political power-players who know the the city's structure from the inside out. Brough served as John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff when he was mayor and was the legislative analyst for Denver's City Council before becoming president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, where she represented the city's business interests. Johnston, who worked as a teacher and principal, served two terms representing northeast Denver in the Colorado Senate. He ran for governor in 2018, coming in third behind Gov. Jared Polis and Cary Kennedy in the Democratic primary that year. Johnston also served as the president and CEO of Gary Community Ventures.
Money talks
The two candidates who raised the most money from direct contributions and matching funds and attracted the lion's share of outside help — more than $3 million from independent expenditure groups — appear to have made the runoff. Money is rarely the only determinant of electoral success, but funding confirms a candidate's viability in the marketplace, and that's what appears to have happened here. As in most campaigns, money begets money, since the candidates who can afford robust funding operations tend to bring in more dough, and major contributors — like the corporate leaders and politically minded billionaires who poured money into committees supporting Johnston and Brough — like to back a winner, or at least a candidate who looks like they're already on track.
Incumbency didn't matter much
It could be no coincidence that the frontrunners don't hold office, while the three mayoral candidates who have day jobs in government — state Sen. Chris Hansen, state Rep. Leslie Herod and longtime city council member Debbie Ortega — trailed in the vote. Johnston has run in part on his record in the legislature but had the benefit of pointing to policies already baked in to the state's political landscape, in sharp contrast to the current office-holders who were in the thick of contentious debates on questions that could still be up for grabs among voters, including rent control, zoning and development issues.
Progressive vote splintered
While Denver has a reputation for producing some of the state's most left-leaning legislators and has its share of progressive city council members, voters went with the more moderate Democrats in the mayor's race. Early on, some members of the city's progressive community pondered consolidating support behind a single candidate, but there's nothing monolithic about the bloc and multiple candidates made the ballot. Calderón and Herod ran the most vocally progressive campaigns among the major candidates, bolstered by another half dozen candidates who polled further back in the pack. Adding together all their votes, it might have been enough to make the runoff, though the dynamics of the race in the first round would surely have been different so it's impossible to say for sure.
Andy Rougeot outperforms his party's numbers
The only Republican in the race, Rougeot outperformed his party's numbers, based on early and unofficial results. The latest tally shows Rougeot winning about 12% of the vote in a city where just 9.5% of active registered voters are Republican. Rougeot, an Army veteran and small business owner, self-funded his campaign to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, ensuring he had enough money to pitch his ideas to Denverites.
