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We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the biggest obstacle to Michael Hancock‘s mayoral campaign was his ill-advised pay raise vote. That same vote has allowed Chris Romer to frame his whole campaign as of late on attacking Michael Hancock and his “irresponsibility” in handling the city budget.

For Hancock to win, then, he needs to establish an antidote to Romer’s attacks. Well, if you’ve been watching any local television for the past couple of days, you’ll know he’s trying:

It’s a start. It’s a beautiful ad, the best that Hancock’s run thus far, which is really saying something. It goes further than the other spot Hancock is running in tandem at defining Michael as a candidate. It certainly addresses Romer’s attacks on the pay raise vote, but does it do enough? It’s a big move for Hancock to admit to that pay raise vote, and it certainly shows his campaign is cognizant of the effectiveness of Romer’s negative advertising.

Unfortunately, negative campaigning works. Hancock can wax on about the fact that he refuses to run a negative campaign, and that’s admirable. What this specific spot doesn’t do, however, is effectively convey to voters why Hancock thought it responsible to vote for a pay raise for city workers.  He admits to the vote and he gives some reasoning, but not enough to totally negate Romer’s attacks, which is what Hancock must do as a candidate. If this is Hancock’s first attempt at remedying the perception of that vote, then it’s a brilliant first step. If it’s all his campaign will be doing to counter Romer’s ads, then it really isn’t enough. In fact, it almost seems as though Hancock is only running this advertisement because he’s being attacked, not because he stands by the principles behind his vote. We think voters will notice that. Hancock also notes that it’s difficult to balance the city budget, but doesn’t describe how the pay-raise lent itself to that effort.

Romer’s campaign has also shown that it’s willing to go negative in this race. Unfortunately for Hancock, the pay-raise vote isn’t the only thing he’s going to have to defend.  

This is a poll of the Denver mayoral runoff race between former Colorado Sen. Chris Romer and Denver City Councilman Michael Hancock, released by Colorado Pols and conducted by Denver-based RBI Strategies & Research. The result of this poll shows a small, well within the margin-of-error lead for Hancock, with 41%, followed by Romer with 37%.

Here’s a detailed summary from RBI research director Kevin Ingham:

RBI Survey Shows Close Race with Hancock Leading Romer by 4 Points

A new survey of likely 2011 municipal runoff voters in Denver shows a close race for the next mayor of Denver.  Just one week after Romer taking the top spot in the first round, Hancock now leads the race for the runoff by a 41% to 37% margin.

In the weeks since RBI’s last survey of the mayoral race, Hancock’s name ID has seen a large boost with only 26% identifying an opinion of him in March and 74% able to identify him now.  Further, Hancock’s favorable name ID now out paces Romer’s with 64% saying they have a favorable opinion and 10% having an unfavorable opinion.  For Romer’s part, he has also experienced a boost in name ID with 51% identifying him in March and 79% able to identify him now.  However, negative opinion of Romer outpaces Hancock with 53% having a favorable opinion and 26% having an unfavorable opinion.

Hancock’s narrow lead is based upon a lead among Democrats, progressives, African Americans and North East Denver voters.  Romer leads among Republicans, men and conservatives.  Undecided voters are disproportionately Mejia voters, Central Denver voters, and those skipped the first round election but plan to vote in the runoff.

RBI Strategies & Research conducted a telephone survey of 400 Denver voters who indicated it was likely that they would vote in the June 2011 Municipal Election.  Interviews were conducted May 9 – 11, 2011 by Standage Market Research of Denver, Colorado, a market research firm specializing in telephone survey interviewing.  Respondents were randomly selected from a list of Colorado voters, purchased from Voter Contact Services, who registered after the 2010 General Election or voted in the 2010 General Election and either 1) voted in at least one off-year election dating back to 2003 or 2) registered after 2009 off-year election.

Today, as a favor to our friends at RBI, we’re releasing the details exclusively via RBI Strategies’ Facebook page. Please click through to get the full toplines and crosstabs for the poll–don’t worry, you can still access the results even if you’re one of the few people online anymore who doesn’t have a Facebook account. But don’t forget to give RBI a ‘Like’ if you do!

Mr. Ingham will join Colorado Pols readers at 1PM today for a Q&A session on the results of this poll.

We touched on this in a post earlier today, but we think it warrants another. From a press release we received from Michael Hancock‘s campaign:

City Leaders Stand United to Endorse Hancock

Today many of Denver’s most prominent elected officials affirmed their strong support for Michael Hancock to be Denver’s next mayor. Since announcing his candidacy in November, Michael has steadily garnered the endorsement and support from a critical mass of Denver’s leaders.

“I have worked with Michael for eight years,” Councilman Charlie Brown said. “He’s sure and he’s steady, and that beats fast and reckless every time. We need a mayor who will be bold without being reckless.  Michael’s actions will be tempered by his time on City Council. Michael may have a calm demeanor, but when the decisions call for it, he will be a “cowboy tough” mayor.”

Michael’s newest endorsements today included City Council members Paul Lopez, Charlie Brown,Marcia Johnson, Peggy Lehmann and Judy Montero, City Councilman-elect Chris Herndon, former RTD Board Member and city council candidate Chris Martinez and former City Council at-large candidates Josh Davies and Rich Gonzalez.

The endorsers pledged their support and vote for Michael because they know and trust his leadership.  They believe that Michael is the right choice to continue to work with the city to build Denver, bringing every one to the table to make the tough decisions and eliminate the budget deficits.

A flood of city leaders have previously come out in strong support of Michael and his vision for Denver, including Former Mayor Wellington Webb, City Council members at-large and former mayoral candidates Carol Boigon and Doug Linkhart, former City Councilwomen Elbra Wedgeworth and Happy Haynes and Denver School Board Members Theresa Pena and Mary Seawell.

It’s clear that Hancock’s trying to send the message that he has the support of most of the City Council. But is that really the best message to be sending?

On one hand, Hancock is now able to show that Romer isn’t the best person to lead Denver because “the people who know Denver best,” its policymakers and leaders, support Hancock.

On the other hand, is it beneficial to be the “insider’s choice” particularly when those insiders supported Hancock’s biggest Achilles Heel: the pay raise vote?

Ultimately, it’s a question over which polls better. Hancock is now able to portray himself as a trusted voice of the people who know Denver. He’s able to in some ways frame his candidacy as a continuation of the Hickenlooper years. That’s strikingly powerful. Unfortunately, in doing so, it allows Romer to take on the role of the “outsider.” It’s ironic, because few would consider Romer to have any standing as anything other than the status quo, but Hancock may have given Romer that card to play.

Hancock and his team may be confident enough in their data and polling to assume that being the insider’s choice is the best message. On the other hand, it may be the only message they’ve got for now, and so they’re riding it as a positive until Romer turns it into a negative, as he’s already doing.

What say you, Polsters?