Global Courant
Denver residents have elected Mike Johnston, a former Oregon state senator, as the city’s first new mayor in more than a decade. Johnston won Tuesday’s runoff after an unusually large 16-way mayoral race in April. godspeed in the work ahead,” as fast-growing Denver faces spiraling housing costs and rising homelessness.
Former Colorado state senator Mike Johnston claimed victory as opponent Kelly Brough conceded Tuesday night in a runoff election to become Denver’s next mayor.
Unofficial results showed Johnston with 54.05% of the vote to 45.95% for Brough late Tuesday evening. Johnston was ahead by 8,000 votes shortly after the polls closed, and that lead grew to nearly 11,000 votes over the course of the evening.
Johnston becomes the city’s first new mayor in more than a decade, replacing Michael Hancock, who was elected in 2011 and served a limited term.
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Brough, the former president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, told supporters Tuesday night that she called Johnston and wished him “good luck with the work ahead because our city is challenged and needs a lot of work. “
The two moderates were the top voters in a 16-runner race in April, pushing the race into Tuesday’s second round.
Denver has become the technical and business center of the Mountain West, but now faces problems similar to those in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Johnston will lead a fast-growing city facing out-of-control housing costs and rising homelessness.
Former Senator Mike Johnston speaks in Denver, Colorado on May 11, 2023. Denver residents have elected former Senator Mike Johnston as the city’s first new mayor in more than a decade. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
The job of mayor of Denver has launched careers, most notably that of John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who later became governor of Colorado and is now a US senator. Another Democratic mayor, Frederico Peña, became the U.S. Secretary of Energy under former President Bill Clinton.
Peña supported Johnston, who also had a larger war chest, including nearly $5 million raised from outside contributions.
As a technology and aerospace hub, the population of the Denver metro area has nearly doubled to 3 million over the past three decades. The fear that burgeoning Denver is headed for a fate like other major cities set the race.
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Candidates debated whether to enforce a ban on growing homeless camps, further fund police, impose rent control, and allow what are often called “safe injection sites” — where people can use drugs under supervision to overdoses. prevent.
Prohibition was a legacy of the Hancock administration.
Johnston, who received slightly more votes than Brough in the April election, has said voters want the next mayor to do a good job of tackling issues in multiple ways.
“We have the same problems as San Francisco and Seattle,” he said in April. “If we get that wrong, you’ll end up like many other big cities where no middle class people can live.”
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Brough campaigned based on her knowledge of Denver and experience as a CEO. In addition to directing the Denver Chamber of Commerce, she served as Chief Strategy Officer of the Metropolitan State University of Denver and served as Hickenlooper’s chief of staff for three years when he was mayor.
Denver’s homelessness rate has risen more than 12% in the past two years. Whether the ban should be maintained divided candidates in the April election, but Johnston and Brough have both said they would maintain it.
The future mayor will also inherit a city experiencing an increase in gentrification, the highest crime rate in decades and a wave of opioid overdoses that led to 473 deaths by 2021.
