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April 05, 2023 01:11 PM UTC

What Just Happened? Assessing a Fascinating Election Day

  • 26 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Tuesday was a huge election night in Colorado, particular in Denver and Colorado Springs. But there were other big races across the country that can tell us more about how things might look in 2024.

Let’s start with the big headlines:

 

Denver Mayor and Public Financing

Image via Mike Johnston campaign

It appears that Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough will advance to the June 6 runoff election, matching the two candidates who had the most well-funded campaigns throughout the race.  Johnston’s place in the runoff is secure, but there is an outside chance that Lisa Calderón could surpass Brough once all ballots have been tallied in Denver.

Tuesday was also a sobering moment for advocates of Denver’s new Fair Election Fund (FEF), which used taxpayer money to help qualifying candidates greatly infuse their campaign warchests. We’ll dig into this more at a later date, but there were a few significant outcomes that do not bode well for the FEF experiment. Not only did FEF not magically advance the candidacies of lesser-known and unprepared candidates, it might have actually ended up increasing the impact of outside independent expenditure groups that FEF had intended to weaken.

The nine candidates who were outside the top tier of Mayoral hopefuls averaged a miserable 600 votes apiece, and only two of them even cracked the 1,000-vote mark. Ean Thomas Tafoya did the best of the bottom nine candidates; he collected a measly 1.29% of the vote despite receiving $156,000 in FEF money.

Running for office is easy. Running an effective campaign is hard. Handing out taxpayer money to unprepared or unserious candidates turned out to be a waste of money and time. Perhaps voter turnout would have been better in Denver had there not been so many names on the ballot — or if some of those names could have elevated a different subject other than just talking about homelessness like everyone else.

 

Yemi Mobolade

Yemi Mobolade and family

That’s a name you’re going to want to Google. A Nigerian immigrant and a Small Business Development Administrator for the City of Colorado Springs, Yemi Mobolade shocked political observers by easily winning the top spot in the runoff election for Mayor in Colorado Springs (May 16). Mobolade finished with nearly 29% of the vote, well ahead of second-place finisher Wayne Williams (20%) and Sallie Clark (18%). Mobolade’s spot in the runoff is set, but things are getting uncomfortably close between Williams and Clark as final ballots are counted.

 

Wisconsin Democrats Net Huge Win

This was probably the most closely-watched race in the country this spring, and Democrats delivered a resounding victory. Janet Protasiewicz defeated Dan Kelly by a 10-point margin, giving progressives a majority control on the hyper-partisan State Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. This victory could lead to significant changes in a state that has favored Democrats for years but has suffered through a shamelessly gerrymandered legislature favoring Republicans. It might also foretell trouble for Republicans in 2024, since winning the Presidency will be a LOT more complicated if Wisconsin is leaning toward Democrats.

 

Progressive Chicago

Brandon Johnson, a former public school teacher and union organizer, outlasted conservative Democrat Paul Vallas to become the next Mayor of Chicago. No Republican was going to become Mayor in a Democratic stronghold such as Chicago, but it is a not-insignificant outcome for the most progressive of the final contenders to end up winning the job in the third largest city in America.

 

Republicans Are Sad

If you say so. But do you really need HIM?

On the same day that Democrats and progressive candidates were racking up big wins across the country, former Republican President Donald Trump was trying to process the fact that he now faces 34 felony counts in New York related to his efforts to pay hush money to a porn star.

Initial polling data seems to indicate that Trump’s indictment is giving him a boost among Republican voters — a very, very ominous sign for a Republican Party that should want nothing to do with Trump in a General Election. Instead, the GOP embrace of the first former President to be indicted for a crime in American history puts Republicans in an impossible position of trying to be the party of “law and order”…but not for everybody.

 

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26 thoughts on “What Just Happened? Assessing a Fascinating Election Day”

  1. 2:00 update from Denver just came in and some changes!

    Mayor remains Johnston & Brough in ther run-off

    Council-at-large: Gonzales-Gutierrez & Tate are still in the top spots, but Sarah Parady has moved into 3rd place and is only .26 percent behind Pen Tate, and only .28 ahead of Travis Leiker. That one is going to be a nail biter and still headed to recount so far.

    CC7 – Estroff is now only .32% ahead of Campion. They are battling it our for the 2nd place slot on the run-off. Both are about 20 points behind 1st place Alvidrez.

    All the rest have held the same as last night

    1. I was thinking the exact opposite. Johnston is kind of an independent-thinking Dem who is disliked by the teacher's union while Brough is a pro-business, centrist Democrat.

      1. Exactly. Denver is the regional leader. Relations with other municipalities will be much better with one of these two as mayor, instead of some ‘democratic socialist.’

        1. The hell you say?  That’d be a really nice theory, except that those “other municipalities” you’re referring to don’t see any much fine distinction between “Democratic” and “Socialist.”

          And really, who living in Denver should give a flying fork what “other municipalities” (love that coded phrase) think about what Denver does?  It’s not like it’s a question of trade, border crossings, military or economic assistance, treaties and alliances, diplomatic relations, or foreign policy.

          1. You’ve not heard of the DENVER Regional Council of Governments?

            In your world, air pollution stays strictly within the boundaries of the City & County?

            1. Yeah, “DrCog,” I rather expected that. DrCog is almost entirely advisory in it’s functioning, so that point is rather lame.  Denver’s choice of mayor or council is moot to the operations of DrCog.

              The pollution issue is laughable (not that it’s funny, but in your trying to use it to support your weak point.)   Name one municipality that has it’s own municipal air-quality standards/policies and enforcement.  (Might as well argued that Denverites don’t stay exclusively inside Denver borders and might carry their mayor’s liberal Denver cooties wherever they go..)

              You just know better than to voice your always obvious point  — “conservative” (whatever the hell that means) good, “liberal”  (anything not “conservative,” whatever the hell that means) bad.

              So, to the point, why should a Denver voter when voting for Denver offices take into account the views of “other municipalities” (however that could possibly even be measured)?

              1. My always obvious point…..? I thought it was just the far righties who liked to track people. But I'm now reminded that said tracking happens even more often in the socialist "workers paradises" of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

                Oh, and there's also a Denver Regional Mayors' council.

      2. Teachers dislike Johnston because he authored a definitively stupid standardized testing bill that hurts education (and benefits testing businesses, his likely aim) — it discourages teachers from working together or taking on low performing students as it puts the onus all on teachers for student learning. Students know they don't have to work hard to pass; the teachers are punished if they don't pass, not them.  The problem is Colorado is the Mississippi of the Mountains when it comes to education funding – it's awful — and we really need a truant system. Choice has resulted in chronic absenteeism. One snowflake and half the class doesn't show up for school

        1. Johnston is a mixed bag: good points are that he is trying to dismantle TABOR and increase teacher pay, as well as backing full day kindergarten. But he’s regressive in pushing a patently unfair teacher evaluation system that penalizes teachers in high poverty schools and disincentivizes working with tough populations

          On the issue of unhoused people, Johnston is also a mixed bag.  He’s “for” creating affordable housing, but against anything that might alleviate the housing rent spiral, like rent control. 
          He’s on the wrong side of the Park Hill golf course open space vs. dense housing infill issue, which Denver voters resoundingly rejected.
           

          Brough is a creature of the Chamber of Commerce- she would be for anything pro-business, which unfortunately means that she would not prioritize pro-people issues when there is a conflict with business interests. 

          1. I don't disagree — but I'm not certain what you see really matters when either of these two get elected as mayor. 

            Johnston as mayor really won't have much influence on changes in TABOR, education funding, testing, or teacher pay. 

            Brough worked for and represented the Chamber of Commerce.  But the positions taken in the past do not necessarily reflect her personal or mayoral priorities, either. 

            I'm going to be interested to see if either solicits (and gets) endorsements from the candidates who don't continue into the run-off. 

  5. 5 pm results drop for Councilmember at Large shows a substantial shift.  In the new order:

    Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez…..44,574…19.95%

    Sarah Parady…………………..36,642…16.40%

    Penfield Tate……………………35,237…15.77%

    Travis Leiker……………………34,317…15.36%

  6. Looking at the district races a lot of flips:

    CC7 – NIck Campion is now in the #2 spot. But only 54 votes more than Estroff

    CC8 – Lewis takes #1 spot from Revare but only by 28 votes

    CC9 – CdeBaca claims #1 spot by 54 votes

    CC10 – Shannon Hoffman now in #2 spot for run-off passing Kaplan by 53 votes

    All VERY close and could switch yet again if there is very many ballots left to count. Next results will be reported Thursday afternoon

    1. Anything to recommend them OTHER than not spending money?

      Much to my surprise, the two I voted for were both in the top 4 — and COULD be the winners. 

      Denver has something like 35,000 more votes to process.  Ballots awaiting signature "cures," and votes from military and citizens outside the US have until next Wednesday to be counted.

  8. Thursday 2pm update. This is likely the last update until next week when the official numbers are reported.  The Elections division has sent out a tweet there are about 2400 ballots left to count and they are all ones that need cures. There could also be a few straggler over seas ballots. The pertinent point is the gap between #2 and #3 for Council-at-large is now more that 2400 so we know who are winners are:

    Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez with 20.57 % – 52,486 votes

    Sarah Parady with 16.6% – 42,364 votes.

    CC7: Campion and Estroff still a cat's whisker (95 votes) apart/ Campion currently on top.

    CC8: Lewis seems to have secured top line in the run-off with 295 more votes than Revare.

    CC9: Still a a run-off. Cde Baca 208 votes ahead of Watson

    CC10: 2nd place in run-off is too close to call. Hoffman is 230 votes ahead of Kaplan.

    1. There was also some suspense as to whether Lisa Calderon might catch Kelly Brough for the 2nd spot in the Mayor's runoff, but she's behind about 3,200 with only said 2,400 left to count.

      1. I know very little about Sarah Parady so please don't take this as a knock on her. But I think Denver lost out on an opportunity to have Tate in office. He's got a wealth of knowledge and can speak with reason on a host of issues.

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