U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
See Full Big Line
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Michael Bennet
50%
50%
50%
Att. General
See Full Big Line
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) Brian Mason
60%↑
30%↑
20%↓
Sec. of State
See Full Big Line
(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
See Full Big Line
(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%↑
30%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
45%↓
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
April 04, 2023 05:04 PM UTC
38 Comments
Just saw in a tweet that 25.8% of active voters had returned ballots by 6 p.m. Don't know how much higher it can go in an hour, plus guessing there are other factors that will determine final numbers.
I'm guessing low turnout favors Johnston/Brough?
Probably, but giant satchels of money, both dark and public, didn't hurt either!
At 7pm it is Johnston and Brough headed to the run-off. Calderon is the 3rd person and far behind these two. Johnston has top line thus far.
4 candidates lead the pack for CC at large: Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez; Penfield Tate, Travis Leiker, and Sarah Parady, in that order with with only 2270 votes between the top and bottem.
O'Brien re-elected as Auditor
CC1 – Sandoval
CC2 – Flynn
CC3 – Torres
CC4 – Romero Campbell
CC5 – Sawyer
CC6 – Kashmann
CC7 – Alvidrez well in lead, but runoff with one of 3 others
CC8 – run-off between Revare & Lewis
CC9 – run-off between Watson & Cdebaca
CC10 – Kaplan with have a run-off ; 2 are close for 2nd place.
CC11 – Gilmore
Questions 2N & 2M passed, 2O failed.
Interestingly, under vote for CC at large is larger than the top vote getter thus far. This where that "list of Who?" that I sope of earlier become evident.
At 7 pm, Councilmember District 10 status is
Chris Hinds 3,319 votes 38.86% (incumbent)
Noah Kaplan 2,216 votes 25.95%
Shannon Hoffman 1,856 votes 21.73%
Margie Morris 1,149 votes 13.45%
Serena is the biggest surprise of the results so far. A strong candidate but not obviously on track to have #1 votes.
Just looked at Colorado Springs 7pm results. Someone named Blessing "Yemi" Mobolade is the top voter getter so far (28.49%) and Wayne Williams is 2nd (20.51%). Sallie Clark is 3rd with 19.16%, no one else is above 10%
Vote at 7:20
Colorado Springs Mayor results
"Local businessman Yemi Mobolade co-founded Good Neighbors Meeting House and The Wild Goose Meeting House, among other endeavors. He also founded a church. In the public sector, Mobolade has been an advocate for small businesses with the city. He has also worked with the Chamber and Economic Development Corp.. Mobolade said he sees this role as an opportunity to "restore public trust in local government." He is a naturalized citizen and calls himself a political independent."
Quite a shift from John Suthers.
I can't get enthusiastic about somebody with little or no political exposure. Nobody knows which way he will go on anything. Should at least have been on the city council first.
Mobolade seems like a decent option, at least on ghe surface. I have no idea if the Springs would actually follow through and elect him over Williams, though.
Great to see and pretty much expected since the Dems in Co Spgs all voted for him while the conservaderps all split their votes for different flavors of extremism and fascism.
The runoff will ensure Wayne wins though, since conservaturds always fall in line. At least it wasn't Tig, that dude is a full-on insurrectionist.
8:30 update in Denver:
CC at large could end up in a recount for the 2nd place slot. Penfield Tate is hanging on to 2nd place by only 429 votes over Travis Leiker which is 0.31% of the total, well within recount range of 0.50%.
In Denver, the top two are elected to the two at-Large seats on Council. The 1st place winner is Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez. The total vote spread between #1 and #4 (Sarah Parady) is still only 1.71 %. Depending how many ballots are outstanding that one could still change.
Council district 7 is in a similar pickle:
Alvidrez 37.35 %
Estroff 18.62 %
Campion 18.11 %
The difference between Estroff and Campion is currently 0.53%, just outside of recount range. That represents 162 votes. (notably the undervote in this full house race was 799 so far)
In CC 10 it looks like Chris Hinds will run-off with Noah Kaplan
Nuts! So we'll have a run-off in 7, which is ours.
Forgive me for this is not municipal, but it looks good for Janet Protasiewicz in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election! At least NYT has called it – she's up more than 10% with about 80% of the vote in.
Yes, it wasn't even close in Wisconsin!
10 pm Denver update. No change from the 8:30 numbers suggesting these are the unofficial results until certification in a couple of weeks. Between now and then there is a possibility a few stragglers from over sea voters which have a few extra days to get here as well as people who for got sign their ballot envelopes and need to cure them. But I don't see those numbers being more a couple dozen at most.
Looks like a recount in CC at large, then a run-off for Mayor, and Council districts 7, 8, 9, and 10.
I was wrong. They are not done.
After I posted this, and subsequently stopped following them, the Election Division announced there were about 65,000 ballots still to count and they had only stopped for the night and would resume at 9am on Wed. morning. Next update will be at 2pm.
Really disappointing voter turnout in Denver, I’m hearing around 25%. Out knocking doors for candidates I heard a lot of voters express indecision over the large number of candidates running for mayor. Too many choices sends most into decision paralysis.
I also wonder if having municipal races this time of year as opposed to November might also play a part in the traditionally low voter turnout in our municipal races.
Not an excuse. T'was (almost) ever thus. I found an explanation as to why we do it this way online, courtesy of the Denver Public Library's archives: https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/denver/why-does-denver-elect-its-mayors-april
I don't know if having them on the general election ballot would help/ Yes, the turnout would be higher, but there is a general apathy the further down one goes on a ballot. Besides that, with them on the same ballot as high ranking offices like Pres. or Gov. I'm afraid they would get lost in the chatter.
Maybe Nov. of odd years might help a little. People are used to voting in November so you might get a little better turn out.
However, I still think the best option is to make it a little harder to get on the ballot. Someone else said decision paralysis and I think that is what happens when faced with a dozen or more candidates for a single office. I suspect if both Mayor and CC-at-large had only been the top tier people who were really actively campaigning, more people might have voted. the "who's that?" crowd probably wouldn't be on the ballot if it was harder to get on.
2023 Municipal election, according to the Denver Elections site: Votes cast & counted are just over 29%. Votes awaiting counting are another 9.4%. Not participating. 277,642 registered voters, 61.33%..
Axios had a link to Denver's elections participation all the way back to 1986. Municipal elections
2019…44.53% 2015…28.99% 2011..38.31% (last without an incumbent mayor).
Of course Kent Thiry has the real solution. Kent Thiry always knows what other people need to do. Aaarrrgggh!
But I really don't like the idea of Denver moving to Instant Runoff Voting. In my opinion IRV is not a real runoff.
As it stands today (assuming no changes in candidate order) voters now have a chance to fully evaluate Johnston vs. Brough, including the dynamics behind what either one winning would really mean. If new info comes to light, or conditions change in a relevant way, or voters just didn't learn enough about the 2 candidates during the past few months, voters can make a fresh decision in June.
Not so with IRV/ranked choice. Voters make one single set of ranked voting decisions on one ballot, and the digital voting system eliminates lowest performers to finally produce a winner. Once the ballots are in, election dynamics between candidates are completely over, and results are in the hands of the machine.
You actually are selling me on IRV. The idea of it being over in April is very appealing. Now there will be two more months of seeing their ads every time I turn around.
I was once a skeptic of IRV, but have watched it in action in enough jurisdictions to be fully behind it. I doubt it would increase turnout though, just remove the need for a run-off, which is quite expensive by the way.
Agreed on the ads, but I'll still prefer a fuller vetting of the candidates over saving money. One thing I forgot to mention – an actual runoff would let legal voters who didn't vote in April vote in June.
except most run-off elections have had a DROP in participation.
Of course, both your point and my point can be true in the same election!
IRV is less an issue here than what KT is proposing with this comment:
"If an aspiring candidate
doesn’t havecan't afford to pay 20 supporters to go out, talk to voters, and collect something closer to that number of signatures, they shouldn’t be running for mayor of the state’s capital city."I'm on the record right here on Pols saying petitioning favors the wealthy because they can pay for it. Still, I'm leaning toward the current signature requirements for the Mayor's race being a tad too low.
Agreed. I would support a moderate increase. Maybe 1000 for Mayor, 800 for other city-wide offices and 500 for the district offices.
I didn't pull those numbers out of my butt. I really had a thought going on them: Municipal elections are nominally non-partisan so everyone is in essence running as an independent. For an independent to get on the ballot for Congress is 1000 signatures. Denver is only slightly smaller than a congressional district in population, so 1000 sigs for mayor is reasonable. The other offices are just based on their relationship to the mayor's race.
Are candidates required to use paid signature gatherers or is it optional?
If it's optional, then the current system allows for rich and lazy candidates to pay for others to collect signatures, or poor and ambitious candidates with supportive volunteers to go out and collect signatures for free.
Candidates could use volunteers or collect signatures themselves. Paid petition companies are usually more dependable because they'll spend the hours to get jobs done. Maybe wouldn't matter quite that much if campaigns only need 300 signatures, but the higher you go the more hours are needed.
Southwest Denver Dem – just saw a tweet from Denver Elections saying:
Not sure exactly how to characterize this. Maybe, this is pretty bad turnout but not horrible?
It does show a significant portion (roughly 40%) waited until the last day. To my this indicates an electorate that had trouble deciding.
Also since so many waited until the last minute, weather could have been a factor on turn-out.
2Jung, not sure why but my device doesn’t allow me to use ‘Reply’. As for the 38% turnout, it’s better then 25% but still pretty sad.
I do wonder if a November election would help, there is after all the school board elections this fall. Sure would help turnout if these were combined in off year, maybe?
Don’t think it would be a good idea to combine state and federal elections, too much down ballot would be lost. In my opinion.
Like you, I'd oppose moving municipal elections to even years for the same reason as you, I think. Media was in my opinion able to give the Denver municipal races pretty good coverage this year, and that probably wouldn't be the case if they were also trying to handle a hot Governor's or Senate race.
Colorado Municipal League wrote
I think somehow, most all the others are able to have elections in November.
I'm not certain there is a "perfect" option … but your comment about not mixing state and federal elections makes me wonder about the idea of even years being for federal elections and odd years being for state, county, municipality and school board elections. For partisan offices, primaries in May, general elections in November. All other elections held in November.
As long as I'm dreaming, we should insist that all recall elections and vacancy elections are held either in May or November.