May 20, 2023 01:56 PM UTC

Kelly Brough is the Denver Republican's Candidate for Mayor

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• by: Colorado Pols

The runoff election to determine the next Mayor of Denver is just 10 days away (June 6), and by most accounts the race between former State Sen. Mike Johnston and former Denver Chamber of Commerce CEO Kelly Brough could come down to the wire.

Ballots are sitting on kitchen tables; television ads are running non-stop, debates are taking place seemingly every other day; and new endorsements are being touted right and left. Well, mostly “left,” but on Friday a curious new endorsement from the “right” was making news.

As Kyle Clark reports for 9News, the Denver Republican Party has endorsed Kelly Brough for Mayor.

As far as we can tell, Brough has not rejected the endorsement of the Denver Republican Party. We wouldn’t expect her to run away from this support anyway, since Brough’s campaign has been actively courting Republican voters.

As Clark noted later:

Republicans make up 9.5% of registered voters in Denver. The only Republican candidate in the 16-way unaffiliated first round was Andy Rougeot, who received 11.5% of the vote. Rougeot is not endorsing either runoff candidate.

Brough told Dan Caplis after the first-round election on April 4 that she was hoping to gain the backing of Rougeot and his supporters. It’s not a terrible idea to seek out the support of Denver Republicans (in theory), but we sure as hell wouldn’t talk about it openly and risk alienating the overwhelming number of Democrats in Colorado’s largest city.

Brough spoke to the Denver Republican Party at its “First Friday Breakfast” on May 5 — an invitation that Johnston wisely ignored — which apparently played a role in gaining the Denver GOP’s support. Here’s what the Denver Republican Party said about Brough in an email distributed on Friday:

Denver GOP is endorsing Kelly Brough. She has served as a Chief of Staff to Hickenlooper, and has spent a her political career working with Democrats. [Pols emphasis]

However, she came to our First Friday Breakfast last week and communicated many common sense ideas. She addressed REAL problems Denver County residents have in their everyday lives.

We do not know how she will govern if she wins, but Brough stands out by not using Marxist vocabulary and by actually addressing taxpaying residents’ concerns. There are too many people serving in Denver County elected postions [sic], like City Council and Denver Public School Board who are openly promoting Marxist ideas. These people must be called out and rejected.

In recent months, Brough has made regular appearances on right-wing radio shows hosted by the likes of George Brauchler and Mandy Connell, both of whom were outspoken supporters of Heidi Ganahl, the 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate who suffered a 20-point loss to Democrat Jared Polis (Ganahl later said that “conservative radio in Colorado is the only way we got our voice out”). As Clark noted on Friday evening, Brough’s conservative background makes it unsurprising that Denver Republicans would be inclined to offer their endorsement.

Yet there is a fine line between trying to appeal to Denver Republicans and making it known that you are courting the GOP, and that’s where this strategy goes awry. We’re certainly not the only political observers who are perplexed that Brough would want to be publicly supported by a Denver GOP that openly advocated for Rougeot two months ago:

On sheer numbers alone, it will be Denver Democrats who will ultimately decide the outcome of this mayoral race. Voters who might still be undecided in this contest won’t be confused any longer once they learn that Brough has been endorsed by the Denver Republican Party. If we were Johnston, in fact, we wouldn’t run another television ad that didn’t mention this endorsement front and center.

There was a time when appealing to all sides of the political spectrum might have been a wise approach for a candidate in a “nonpartisan” municipal race, but that was before Donald Trump and the MAGA movement drew a bright red line in the political sand. Whatever benefit Brough might get from the 10% of registered Republicans in Denver will pale in comparison to the blowback she’s going to receive from this news.

The only thing worse would be getting endorsed by Tom Tancredo.