Two candidates show early lead in Denver mayoral race after initial votes tallied
Thousands of ballots remain to be counted in Denver’s 2023 municipal election, but two candidates — Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough — have taken an early lead in the race for mayor.
In unofficial results released at 7 p.m., Johnston was leading all candidates with 22,146 votes, about 24.5% of ballots tabulated so far. Brough was a close second with 20,835 votes, or 23%. Tailing those two were Lisa Calderón with 13,020 votes, or 14.4%, Andy Rougeot with 12,164 votes, or 13.4% and Leslie Herod with 7,977 votes, or 8.8%
Those numbers point to an outcome that many observers already expected coming into municipal election day — a new mayor will not be named tonight, this week or even this month.
One candidate needed to claim more than 50% of the vote to win the office outright. Instead, the top two vote-getters will move on to a runoff election which will be decided in a second round of voting that concludes on June 6.
According to the first batch of results, Johnston and Brough are the most likely duo to face off in Round 2, but Calderón, Rougeot and Herod are all within reach. Longtime City Councilwoman Debbie Ortega is in sixth place with 4,235 votes, good for 4.7% of votes counted so far.
Results are expected to be updated at 8:30 p.m., according to city elections officials.
Many Denverites held onto their ballots until Election Day.
Ballots first went out to voters the week of March 13. As of Monday night, just 21.6% of active voters in Denver had returned them, according to data from the Elections Division of the Office of the Denver Clerk and Recorder.
Last month, elections division spokesman Lucille Wenegieme theorized that Denver voters were struggling to make up their minds with 16 active mayoral candidates appearing on the ballot.
Seventeen would-be mayors qualified. Only one of those people, Kwame Spearman, dropped out before Election Day. Votes cast for Spearman will not be counted toward the election’s outcome.
Public polling was sparse during the campaign cycle. The numbers that were released ahead of Tuesday depicted a wide-open contest. That left observers guessing going into the final days.
“It’s anybody’s race — it’s going to be whoever gets out the vote” among those top contenders, said Jeff Fard, a Five Points community activist, also known as Brother Jeff, said last week.
The dominant issues of the campaign cycle were increasing homelessness and the rising crime rates that Denver experienced in recent years along with many other big cities across the country.
In a poll commissioned by a group of Denver business leaders in February, 96% of the 405 respondents said they considered homelessness a major problem in the city. Thirty-three percent of those polled gave Denver an “F” on its efforts to reduce homelessness.
Among the leading candidates, Calderón and Herod were the only two who said they would stop the controversial practice of sweeping homeless encampments that began under outgoing Mayor Michael Hancock.
Calderón, who crafted her homelessness policy with input from unhoused people and advocates, said in a Denver Post candidate questionnaire that she would replace sweeps with “24/7 crisis intervention responders” to address encampments. Her administration would zero in on addressing systemic issues that contribute to homelessness like access to education, transportation and job training rather than crack down on those sleeping in tents on the city’s sidewalks.
Herod’s approach as mayor would also focus on increasing street outreach and expanding substance use treatment and harm reduction efforts, she said.
Brough campaigned on expanding homeless shelter capacity and temporarily expanding options for sanctioned campsites like Denver’s existing Safe Outdoor Spaces program where couples can stay together and people can keep their pets with them unlike in traditional group shelters.
Opponents criticized Brough for being evasive in her stance about what she would do when people refuse shelter or drug treatment services offered by the city. She eventually said in multiple interviews that arrests would be a “last resort” for people who violate the camping ban.
“If people refuse services and supports, I will use the legal authority to intervene to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the individual and the broader community,” Brough wrote in her response to The Denver Post question asking if the sweeps should continue.
Johnston also focused on standing up new short-term housing options quickly to provide space for unhoused people outside the existing shelter network. His plan calls for building 10 to 20 “micro-communities” with tiny homes and on-site services that combined could house all of the 1,400 people counted as being unsheltered in the city’s 2022 point-in-term homelessness count. He faced questions from opponents including Trinidad Rodriguez on just where those micro communities would go.
Rodriguez’s own homelessness plan drew harsh criticism including comparisons to internment camps because it hinged on using involuntary mental health holds to institutionalize unhoused people that refuse drug treatment and other types of support.
Candidates’ messaging on the city’s public safety concerns and what should be done about them also ran the gamut. Many in the race suggested a multi-faceted approach that focused both on creating more economic opportunity in the city to head off crime before it happens and expanding and diversifying Denver’s police force to meet the needs of a community that has grown substantially over the last decade.
The polar opposite approaches were best embodied by two candidates.
Rougeot, an Army veteran and former small business owner, hammered on his plan to hire 400 more police officers in the city throughout the campaign, claiming he could overcome the recruiting challenges that have plagued the department under Hancock by empowering officers.
Terrance Roberts, a former member of the Bloods street gang who spent time in prison before becoming a prominent anti-gang activist in his Park Hill neighborhood, focused on the need for a stronger social safety net and positive outlets for young people. A public banking system to finance public housing was just one building block in creating a stronger, safer city under Robert’s platform.
“Youth violence and domestic violence makes up the bulk of our homicides. We need more youth centers and arts-related services to engage that population,” Roberts said in his candidate questionnaire. “We need more mental health and family services to be prioritized here in Denver.”
A big reason the mayoral ticket was so long in 2023 was the launch of Denver’s Fair Election Fund program which provided participating candidates with public matching money in return for promising to abide by lower campaign donation limits. Aurelio Martinez, a long-shot candidate, said at a forum early in the race that he would not have run without access to those matching funds.
Thirteen mayoral candidates participated in the fund (including the no-longer running Spearman). The matching payments pumped roughly $3.5 million combined into those campaigns.
The top three fundraisers in the race — Brough at $1.4 million, Johnston at $1.3 million and Herod at $932,000 — also had the biggest Fair Election Fund payouts helping to drive those totals. Brough received $750,000 (the cap on what a mayoral candidate could draw from the fund), Johnston claimed $613,539 and Herod $587,057.
Candidates who make the runoff in their races get a lump sum payment from the fund for that stage, 25% of what they collected in the first round.
Some grassroots candidates, like write-in option Jesse Lashawn Parris, questioned if the Fair Elections Fund served its intended purpose in the race when fundraising giants like Brough and Johnston benefited from it.
Johnston has by far the largest independent expenditure committee backing him, with more than $2.2 million in spending recorded as of Election Day. The committee backing Brough meanwhile has spent just shy of a million dollars. Those committees aren’t allowed to coordinate with candidates but are also not subject to campaign finance limits.
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