March 22, 2019 10:11 AM UTC

Denver Council District 1, 2019

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• by: DENependent

Northwest Denver, including Sunnyside, Berkley, Sloane’s Lake, Highlands, and part of West Colfax is in Denver Council District 1. Since it is an open seat in 2019 there are seven (!) candidates to replace the outgoing Councilman Rafael Espinoza.

Denverite has short introductions to all seven in a March 19th article. The really interesting part for the horse race of who’s getting support is the money raised by each.

Somma- $48,791.05, $1,000 self funded
Sandoval- $47,470.00
Durrah- $43,902.20
Kulkarni- $26,093.47 $4,900+ self funded
Sabados- $25,936.59 $1,000+ self funded
D’Agosta- $15,192.75 including a $2,635.75 loan
Aguilar- $6,221 $2,000 self funded

Purely on this basis it looks a lot like a three person race between Michael Somma, Amanda Sandoval, and Scott Alan Durrah and seems likely to go on to a run off. Denver city elections, even though they probably impact people’s lives more than statewide elections, are low turn out and low information votes.

Random chance has them on the ballot as:
1) Praj Kulkarni 2) Victoria R. Aguilar 3) Sabrina D’Agosta 4) David Sabados 5) Mike Somma 6) Amanda Sandoval 7) Scott Alan Durrah

Will this give a boost to Kulkarni? He’s not leading in fundraising, but he’s not totally out of the hunt either. Without the usual signals of party affiliation voters might break for him. Espinoza has endorsed Sandoval and the other two top fundraisers are white guys. Will that give her an edge? On the other hand Somma is a firefighter and lots of people have warm feelings towards that profession. As of the 22nd his election website is also the highest ranked in searches for “Denver Council District 1”.