Experts: Mike Johnston, Kelly Brough need to distinguish campaigns, fine-tune messaging in runoff

With a runoff election between Kelly Brough and Mike Johnston all but guaranteed, political experts said the two candidates, who offer largely similar solutions to Denver’s most pressing issues, would have to find a way to distinguish their campaigns from each other, capitalize on strategies that have worked so far and fine tune their messaging to voters.

They’ll need to do it amidst what many expect to be another deluge of outside spending from groups that may choose to go negative in a city that historically has recoiled from mudslinging in elections.

They’ll also need to figure out how to court Denverites who flocked to the race’s more progressive candidates — notably state Rep. Leslie Herod and Lisa Calderon, who secured nearly 29 percent of the votes combined — and, at the same time, persuade Andy Rougeot’s backers to throw their weight behind them. Rougeot, the only Republican candidate in the race, received nearly 12 percent of the vote, the unofficial tally showed.

And they’ll need to raise money — a lot more than what they hauled in so far.

“Now the race changes a bit,” said Alan Salazar, chief of staff to outgoing Mayor Michael Hancock. “They’re going to go back to raising more money and getting their message out. So, the next couple of months are going to be very challenging to both of them.”

Catch a breath, redefine the race

After the furious pace of the last few days, both Johnston and Brough will need to “catch their breath,” said Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics columnist Eric Sondermann.

Sondermann said this is the moment for the two candidates to assess what brought them to the finish line and hone their strategies.

“Johnston needs to keep doing what he’s doing because that’s obviously working,” he said. “Kelly Brough needs to figure out how she can better connect with voters. She needs to trust her instincts (because) she has good political instincts.”

Salazar said both bring in strengths they can highlight: “Kelly would probably be advertising the fact that she ... could be the first woman mayor. That’s going to be attractive to some people. Mike has a legislative record and maybe will be reaching out to remind people that he represented a Senate district with a majority African-American population and people of color.”

Steve Welchert, a veteran political, policy and strategic communications counselor who served as legislative liaison for Gov. Richard D. Lamm, said both candidates will have the opportunity to more fully define themselves and the contours of the race in the weeks ahead.

“If it’s only a one-on-one race, voters will have a much clearer chance to evaluate these candidates and make some choices,” Welchert said.

Jim Carpenter, who served as chief of staff to Gov. Bill Ritter and state director for U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, said both candidates avoided hurting their campaigns in the first phase of the mayoral race, when voters had to pick from among 16 candidates.

“Both of them did a very good job of setting themselves up for this runoff,” Carpenter said.

But what’s unique about this matchup, Carpenter said, is there’s no “establishment guy versus the upstart” dynamics, which characterized past mayoral elections.

Instead, both are sophisticated candidates with long-established ties to Denver’s political structure.

“It would be fascinating how they differentiate themselves,” Carpenter said. “Kelly, I think, continues to talk about her practical experience and her commitment in the city.”

He added, “Mike Johnston talks about vision and kind of big picture things.”

Victory means scrutiny

Welchert said more scrutiny is headed the candidates’ way on a host of issues, including where their financial support is coming from.

“We’re going to look at where that money is going to come from — and who’s beholden to who,” said Welchert, who noted that some of the support for Johnston came from out of state, while Brough counted on the backing from big businesses.

Plenty of landmines exist for both candidates, who also have the opportunity to read the tea leaves, for example, from Denverites’ decision to reject the Park Hill Golf Course redevelopment project, and aggressively court the 60% of voters who voted against the proposition.

Salazar said campaign commercials that try to paint and contrast the two candidates might be inevitable.

“How negative it gets, I think, is always a danger in Denver because Denver voters have historically not reacted well to negative advertising, even from an IE because it’s not hard to figure out who the IE is associated with,” he said, referring to independent expenditure groups, which spend for or against candidates and are legally barred from coordinating with the campaigns.

Negative is in the eye of the beholder, said Michael Dino, who served as campaign manager for former mayor Wellington Webb.

While overtly negative ads may not become common in the next few weeks, Dino said some may walk the line depending on who’s looking.

“TV advertising is pretty blatant when it’s negative, and negative ads in the sense that they’re criticizing the other candidate haven’t had a lot of traction in Denver elections,” he said. “I think you could use social media platforms to get subtle messages across that can be viewed as negative by some people or viewed as contrasted by some people.”

Social media can offer a little more nuance, he said.

Marathon, not sprint

The nine weeks between the April 4 general election and the June 6 runoff election is almost twice as long as it was in 2019, when the gap was five weeks, and experts said the next round of voting will be a marathon for candidates and voters, not a sprint.

But a sprint is likely in the race for endorsements.

Already, Johnston announced endorsements from former Colorado House Speaker Terrance Carroll and former Colorado Senate President Peter Groff. 

But, in particular, Salazar expects Johnston and Brough to aggressively court the endorsement of the candidates they ran against in the last few months.

“And I don’t know where the very left, progressive, Democratic socialist contingent (would go),” Salazar said. “It would be interesting to me to know where those folks are going to feel comfortable.”

Regardless of the runoff’s outcome, some experts said Denver can heave a sigh of relief that Johnston and Brough are two candidates in the final equation — precisely because they are known quantities who are perceived to hew closer to the center of the political spectrum compared to some of their rivals in the mayoral race.  

“Governor (Ron) DeSantis got it wrong,” Welchert said. “I think Denver is where woke went to die tonight, and we have kind of resurrected Denver as a city that’s going to be more center-left with the runoff between Johnston and Brough.”

“Planning now for a transition to the new administration is going to be easier emotionally and in a lot of other ways,” Salazar said, adding Brough and Johnston are “pragmatic, thoughtful people.”