March 01, 2011 10:13 PM UTC

Denver Line Updated

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• by: Colorado Pols

At long last, we’ve updated The Denver Line. We won’t delve into more detail on the other races here so that we can focus on the Mayoral Line and a quick explanation for how we see the race today. This all may change once the new finance reports are made available next week, but here’s our view today:

Chris Romer

Romer is the favorite at this point for two big reasons: Fundraising and name ID. This has been an incredibly quiet race for one of the biggest prizes in Colorado politics, and that gives a huge advantage to the son of a popular former governor (Roy Romer). Whether or not Romer can win a runoff is a different question, but it’s hard to see how he won’t at least make it into the top two in April.

James Mejia

For someone who started his campaign well before any of the other candidates, Mejia should be in a better position than he is. His fundraising has been disappointing, and that’s his biggest problem; Mejia has no built-in name recognition from holding prior office, so he must be able to have a strong paid media presence to have any hope of winning. If Mejia had a poor February raising money, he’ll need a minor miracle to have any real chance at winning.

Carol Boigon

We wouldn’t normally put much stock in a message of “Denver’s first female mayor” (ask Hillary Clinton how much the “first female” thing mattered), but the Mayoral race has been so boring and devoid of interesting story lines that it might actually get some traction. Boigon’s biggest advantage, however, is the fact that she’ll be able to raise or contribute whatever she needs financially — that alone puts her in a great position coming down the stretch.

Michael Hancock

Hancock’s campaign was clearly designed to make him look like the frontrunner from the beginning, but the problem with that approach is that it leaves you with nowhere to go but down. His comments that the Denver Mayor should oversee the school system looked like a bit of a Hail Mary to us, and in a close race it’s going to cost him dearly. Voters may not be happy with the school district, but the idea of putting all control in the hands of one person won’t ease their concerns. The fact that Hancock hasn’t heavily promoted his “Mayoral control” idea tells us that it wasn’t well-received.

Momentum is definitely not on Hancock’s side, but there’s time to fix that. The concern now is whether he’ll be able to afford the kind of TV presence to compete with Romer and Boigon’s money.

Doug Linkhart

Linkhart has not been raising much money and thus suffers the most from the lack of media coverage of the race. Linkhart’s not a bad candidate — he’s just not interesting enough to intrigue voters without paid or earned media support. Unless Linkhart has a couple of aces up his sleeve, we just don’t see how he’s going to be able to get attention once the TV ads begin.

Theresa Spahn

If there was ever a race where a relative nobody had a chance to pull off the upset, this is it. If she can go up on TV with a big buy, then anything goes…but we kind of doubt that’s going to happen. Her campaign touts that she “is on the list of the Top 6 Mayoral fundraisers,” which would be cool if there was a prize for sixth place.