New Mayoral Poll: Romer/Mejia 22%, Hancock 18%

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by: John Tzekara

( – promoted by Denver Pols)

Two public polls have been done on the Mayors race, and the most recent shows that a clear line is being drawn between the candidates who have a shot at the runoff and those who don’t. A few weeks ago, RBI strategies and Colorado Pols released their poll showing Romer 22%, Mejia 10%, Hancock 9%.

Today, a new public poll was released showing Mejia and Hancock both jumping dramatically, while Romer stayed the same (Linkhart, Boigon, and Spahn were all at 10% or less, well below competitive given the margin of error of 4%).

commentary after the jump

The newest poll on it’s own shows that this has become a 3 way race for Mayor, with two of the three making the runoff (no one is leading by enough to realistically get 50%+1 to win outright on May 3rd)

When viewed in relation to the poll just a few weeks ago, it paints a larger picture. Undecided voters went from 40% to 11%, and James Mejia is picking up the largest share of them. Michael Hancock is picking up a large share too.

Chris Romer, after running the most expensive campaign I can remember for Denver Mayor, did not move a single point from where he was a few weeks ago. It looks like 22% of Denver likes Chris Romer…and that’s about it. His TV ads run nonstop, and yet according to the newest data he didn’t pick up a single percent of undecided voters.

Also telling is that Boigon and Linkhart, both of which were considered serious candidates, cannot gain traction. Linkhart has 10%, and Boigon 8%. They would have to somehow gain the support of every undecided voter left to be in the running — all 11% — which isn’t really a possibility.

Looks like Linkhart and Boigon shouldn’t have been so quick to give up their at-large city council seats. Time will tell about Hancock’s decision as well, as he has to edge out either Romer or Mejia to make run-off.

18 thoughts on “New Mayoral Poll: Romer/Mejia 22%, Hancock 18%”

Denver Pols says:

April 18, 2011 at 2:47 am

But Linkhart and Boigon would’ve been termed out of their council seats anyway, correct? They couldn’t have run again if they had wanted to.

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1. John Tzekara says:
  
  April 18, 2011 at 3:15 am
  
  Linkhart, Boigon, and Hancock were all elected in 2003.
  
  Denver restricts council members to three terms of 4 years. If I remember correctly, Linkhart and Boigon came in when Sue Casey and someone else didn’t run again. Casey ran for mayor (and got crushed).
  
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  1. Denver Pols says:
    
    April 18, 2011 at 4:38 am
    
    +1
    
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  2. Brian5064 says:
    
    April 18, 2011 at 5:31 am
    
    She was the member for District 6. Charlie Brown was elected to her seat. Before LInkhart and Boigon, one of the at-large members was Susan Barnes-Gelt. I’m not sure who the other was, maybe Cathy Reynolds?
    
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    1. Dan Willis says:
      
      April 18, 2011 at 4:41 pm
      
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    2. John Tzekara says:
      
      April 19, 2011 at 5:14 am
      
      (random reference for you Johnny Cash fans out there).
      
      Thanks — my memory starts to fade at some point.
      
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Dan Willis says:

April 18, 2011 at 6:42 pm

It was a push poll for Romer. Not a heavy push, but used the newspaper endorsement to judge support of Romer campared to others.

Also polls in general are becoming less representative of the population as more and more people, particularly certain demographics, are moving away from land-lines phones and therefore will not be reached by polsters.

I would hazard a guess that “land-line likely” demographic would heavily correspond to the “voting for Romer’s name” demographic.

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1. RedGreen says:
  
  April 18, 2011 at 6:57 pm
  
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shadyside says:

April 18, 2011 at 6:44 pm

Carol Boigon withdrew from the race today, endorsing Michael Hancock. I’ve heard chatter among Linkhart supporters (just chatter among individuals, mind you) that they might consider supporting Mejia, who they feel to be the other progressive in the race. Romer is clearly aligning himself with conservatives. I’ve begun to feel that whoever gets in the runoff against Romer will win, but is it possible that Romer won’t even get in?

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1. Dan Willis says:
  
  April 18, 2011 at 7:15 pm
  
  My guess (and this is only a guess) would be that Romer will make the run-off. The $64k question is who else will be there with him.
  
  Right this second, my gut is saying Mejia, but ask me again in a couple of hours and I may feel differntly, that’s how nip-n-tuck this race is.
  
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  1. shadyside says:
    
    April 18, 2011 at 7:44 pm
    
    Suddenly, the race has caught my interest – it should be a fascinating next few weeks. Romer probably will make the run-off, but Hancock and Mejia will make it interesting. If, and this might actually be a big if (they’ve been going at each other a bit), Hancock and Mejia can avoid beating each other up, Romer is ripe for the picking in the run-off.
    
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12345 says:

April 18, 2011 at 9:02 pm

Just wanted to point out how wrong Denver Pols has been in their understanding of this race. Just a few days ago, they listed Boigon as second to Romer, with Mejia trailing and Hancock falling??

Wrong.

Anyone remotely familiar with Denver politics knew that Mejia and Hancock were on the rise. Romer had his initial support from his name, his father’s connections and his connections in the state legislature…but didn’t have much of a base outside of that.

There have been accusations by others on this blog that the editor is clearly and obviously anti-Hancock. I believe this is glaringly clear and completely detracts from the quality of the entire site.

And even comments regarding Mejia show limited understanding of local politics. “Too bad he doesn’t have enough money to reach voters.” What? Just how much money do you need in a city mayoral race. He seems to be doing just fine to me. I see his T.V. commercials, billboards, yard signs, etc. as much if not more than Romer.

Anyway. In my book, Denver Pols = FAIL. I for one, won’t be wasting any more time by checking this blog anymore.

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1. Denver Pols says:
  
  April 18, 2011 at 9:12 pm
  
  In your one day of having a user account, you clearly haven’t read anything we’ve written.
  
  We’ve loved Hancock’s TV ads. We’ve loved his story. We think it’s the kind of story that will get you elected.
  
  He may have a shot at using it now. Either way, we’ve never been “anti-Hancock,” we just didn’t think he could win it.
  
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  1. Brian5064 says:
    
    April 19, 2011 at 12:54 am
    
    With all due respect, I think it will take more than “having a nice story” and wonderful TV ads to get Michael Hancock elected mayor. I think everyone salutes him for overcoming the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that life has thrown at him. But that doesn’t mean he should be our mayor. I admire him, but won’t be supporting him in the first round of the mayoral election. I’m not thrilled with his stance on DPS and have serious concerns about his opposition to Mile High Cab’s bid to launch taxi service in Denver and the connection it may have to campaign contributions he has received from Metro Taxi.
    
    He’s certainly an impressive man, but there are a couple of options for mayor in the first round that I like better.
    
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EconomicsWins says:

April 18, 2011 at 10:44 pm

What’s the timing of a new line now that your presumptive #2 is out of the race?

Perhaps some introspection and a new line on Pols having the right line?!?!

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KColorado says:

April 19, 2011 at 12:21 am

Preach on. I am not even supporting Hancock, but this blog is glaringly anti-Hancock. Just look at your line. Carol Boigon has never polled better than 8%, she had terrible ads and she had to loan herself money to be competitive. And she’s number two? I could go on, but suffice to say, this blog would be a lot more fun if it wasn’t so blatantly supporting other candidates.

I had to comment on this because it’s been annoying me for a while and it was good to hear someone else draw attention to the anti-Michael Hancock sentiment.

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1. John Tzekara says:
  
  April 19, 2011 at 5:17 am
  
  I think it was a very fair assessment of the poll. Hancock did gain, but Mejia gained more. In any event, clearly a 3 way race, with Hancock just a half step behind the other two.
  
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smithgrant says:

November 3, 2012 at 7:20 am

I am satisfied with the outcome. The percentage of votes obtained by each candidate was what they all deserved.

Election news

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