Denver’s mayoral election is set to continue for another month. The race is expected to go to a runoff because none of the six candidates is close to topping 50% of the vote, as Mayor Michael Hancock acknowledged in a speech to supporters Tuesday night. The incumbent had 56,179 votes, or about 39% of the vote, as of 1 a.m. Jamie Giellis was in second place with 36,973 votes, or nearly 26%. The next results release was set for midday Wednesday. If the results hold, Giellis and Hancock will face off again on June 4. “We are not done — we are ready to keep telling the story!” the incumbent declared. “Don’t be disappointed. We won tonight. And come June 4, we’re going to win again!” Giellis also declared the results a success: “The people of Denver have spoken. They have sent a clear message that they are done with the direction this city is headed under the current mayor, Michael Hancock. And let me just say, I am ready for the fight, ready for the fight. ” Also in the mix were Lisa Calderón with 17% of the vote and Penfield Tate with 15%. There were still plenty more votes to count; about half of all ballots arrived on Election Day, according to elections spokesperson Alton Dillard. Calderón had not conceded as of 10 p.m., and Tate’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment. The results throw Hancock’s third-term hopes into question. Giellis promised to rein in development, a theme common among the challengers. This is her first run for elected office, having worked in recent years as a consultant for neighborhood districts including in the River North development zone. She was borderline speechless as the results arrived. “What if I can’t find words?” she told a reporter, her eyes growing wide. “What an incredible position to be in. To be at that number after starting from zero on the name recognition scale.” Giellis was known as Jamie Licko until her marriage last year. In the next month, she will race to broaden her base. None of the other challengers have announced yet if they’ll support her. Meanwhile, Hancock will dig deep in the network he has built since winning his first election to Denver City Council in 2003. “I’m staying with him,” Don Castro, 58, said of Hancock as he dropped off his ballot in Sunnyside. “He’s done good for us.” Live election results The election has loomed large in the headlines for months, but there were no public polls to hint at the results. And while the candidates attended more than 30 forums and knocked on countless doors, campaign workers often found that people hadn’t heard about the upcoming vote. But a late surge of voters pushed turnout above 2015 levels, with about 33 percent of ballots returned and the count still climbing. Elections officials warned that they’d be tallying votes late into the night. Hancock had spent more than $2 million through April to create a marketing juggernaut with television ads, on-the-ground canvassing and more. Giellis had spent about $400,000. And both candidates had more than $100,000 left in the bank as of May 1. Hancock, who grew up poor in northeast Denver, served as a city councilman for eight years before winning the mayor’s office in 2011. He cruised to re-election in 2015 as the economy climbed out of the Great Recession, but he was perceived as more vulnerable this year: Development and the city’s housing crisis both accelerated in Hancock’s second term. The incumbent’s critics range from affluent “slow-growth” advocates to residents of neighborhoods already fragmented by gentrification. Denver Elections distributed about 418,000 ballots for this election, compared to just 350,000 in 2015. That’s partly due to population growth, and the excitement of the 2016 and 2018 elections likely boosted the number of active voters who are automatically sent ballots. Buzz for the election slowly built from early in 2017 as the first candidates entered the race. But the major challengers didn’t emerge until late 2018, each looking for their own lane to critique the administration and attract voters. Brad Clemmons, 63, sighed and paused for eight seconds when he was asked about his mayoral choice Tuesday. The 35-year resident of Denver wasn’t very excited, he admitted. “I’m not. I have to be honest, I’m not,” the Golden Triangle resident said after delivering a ballot by bike. He said he likes Hancock personally and thinks he is “acting like a mayor, but he’s not being a mayor.” Instead, he threw in with Tate, mostly on the strength of the candidate’s time as a state senator. Tate focused on character and the perils of development. In the final weeks before the election, he distributed a mailer that blasted Hancock on sexual harassment, the Colorado Convention Center scandal and the role of lobbyists in the city. At one point, the former state senator called for a freeze on major construction until the election was over. Calderón promised to transform city government, reducing the power of the so-called strong mayor and prioritizing communities that have been “neglected by this administration” and past mayors, she said. She is suing the administration in federal court over the termination of her contract to run a jail rehabilitation program. “Hancock’s idea of a world-class city is pricing people out of their homes,” said voter Nikte Contreras, 28. “Calderón is getting us back to an inclusive city. She’s coming from a different angle.” Giellis was best known for leading the River North Art District, part of her career in the emerging public-private realm. Her opponents criticized her as being too close to developers, but she tried to cut against the status quo. In the campaign’s closing weeks, she said she would end “runaway development” and “pay-to-play” practices. She also floated strict new limits on rezonings, a popular development policy tool. At the same time, she tried to create a vision of a future Denver connected by streetcars and other transit. “Development — there’s too much,” said Jeanie Pleasant, 74, a Barnum resident who’s supporting Giellis. “A population explosion. It ain’t the old Denver. I’m retired, so thank goodness I don’t have to put up with commuting traffic. Traffic during the weekends is bad enough.” Her vote “was more about Hancock,” she said. “I really didn’t like (Giellis’) development background, but she was the best of the field.” She added: “As long as she doesn’t put every developer in her pocket.” Another Giellis supporter, 30-year-old Ben Ehrlich, thought that Giellis was the best bet against Hancock. Barbara Holland, 72, of University Park, said Giellis has “expertise in true city planning and not this haphazard, convoluted zoning system.” She added: “She is the real deal.” Hancock’s campaign slogan in 2019 was the same as in 2011: “We are all Denver.” But he has shifted his message in recent years. In 2011, it was all about helping a city get back on its feet and onto the global stage. In recent years, his speeches have centered on the effects of urbanization, turning “equity” and “social justice” into the watchwords for city government. The city in his second term created its first dedicated affordable housing fund. The city is preparing to launch new departments focused on housing and transportation, both of which could go to voters in a future election. Meanwhile, a newly approved plan lays out a new approach for the city’s next 20 years. But the administration also has stumbled on some issues: The Denver auditor’s office said last month that the city’s approach to homelessness has been “fragmented and understaffed.” The mayor’s initial attempt to create a housing-focused office faltered as its first leader quit after a year. On Tuesday night, the incumbent seemed to relish the challenge that could end his political run. He returned to the argument that he has carried the city forward while his challengers want to undo progress. “Here’s the clear choice we get to make in the next 28 days: Keep the city’s progress going, or rolling backwards,” Hancock said from the stage at EXDO Event Center in River North.<doc-sep>Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.<doc-sep>DENVER (CBS4) – Denver voters will go back to the polls in June for the runoff election in the 2019 Denver mayor’s race. Incumbent Michael Hancock received 39 percent of the vote, which is not enough to win outright. He’ll now face rising political star Jamie Giellis, who received 26 percent of the vote. Both candidates made appearances on CBS4 This Morning on Wednesday and talked about the issue of Denver’s rapid growth. “We’ve spent time working on our land use strategies. We’ve spent time talking about our future as a city — mobility, housing, all those things are now in place and we’re moving forward with those strategies today,” Hancock said. “The No. 1 thing I hear about is growth and development. Growth and development has taken over our city and I think residents and community members, neighborhoods feel like they have no voice in the process,” Giellis said. That runoff is set for June 4. In addition to the mayoral runoff, there are runoffs in almost half of the city council races and for the city clerk’s office. CBS4’s Britt Moreno interviewed Hancock and started her line of questioning with a query on whether Hancock thinks Denver should be a champion for change after America’s latest school shooting, which happened in Highlands Ranch on Tuesday. Hancock said it’s a problem “not just in Colorado but throughout society. We have a serious mental health problem, this epidemic of walking in schools and randomly victimizing people and destroying hopes and dreams.” He says our whole community needs change. Here’s more of Moreno and Hancock’s Q&A: Moreno: Can you pinpoint for me the way you would change Denver? Hancock: Mental health is so large right now. It’s like eating an elephant. You have to do it one bite at a time. We are trying to make sure we have enough clinicians, enough beds, enough hotlines so people are aware of them and that we are in schools as much as we can and bringing as many clinicians as we can to Denver. Moreno: Denver looks a lot different now than it did when you first became mayor eight years ago. You have helped us achieve development success but many critics say you have moved Denver too fast and as a result have caused too high of housing costs and gentrification. Do you agree? Hancock: No any individual moves a city too fast. This city was out of recession the most desirable city in country. It’s desirable and we want it that way. We grew at a rapid pace — exponentially fast — and we have put in place mechanisms to manage growth. Moreno: We know this morning Initiative 300 failed — that’s the urban camping ban. But if you live in Denver, even passed through Denverm you know homelessness is an issue. What will you do to help? Hancock: It’s housing first and making sure we’re addressing mental health, behavioral challenges like addiction running rampant through our society. The greatest effectiveness is house people first then wrapping them with intensive services. That is what we are doing and continue to deal with for people on streets who are service resistant and getting them indoors. CBS4’s Alan Gionet interviewed Giellis, and also asked about the recent concerns school violence in Colorado. “This is issue we need to address head on,” Giellis said. “I believe it is a mental health issue and making sure we’re looking at our gun laws.” Giellis also talked to Gionet about being president of Denver’s RiNo Arts District. She is the founder of a consulting firm that works with cities and neighborhoods on various projects. Gionet: You were a very big part of the redo in RiNo. There’s not a lot of affordable housing there, though. Was RiNo a success? Giellis: Well I came into the RiNo process later in the game. I was in that after commuter rail was opening and that area had started to see a lot of changing hands of developers and we knew that growth was coming there. My role was to come in and work with the community to say ‘How do we try to grab hold of that and reinvest it into the important things for the community,’ so while we haven’t seen a lot of affordable housing built yet, we did implement the most stringent housing requirements around the station that were passed last March. One of the first projects is coming out of the ground now and I suspect we’ll see a lot more. We also worked on the tiny home village for the homeless while I was there, which is a great project. And so I think that in the long run we’ll see that a lot of what we laid the groundwork for in RiNo is going to have great results. But mostly what happened there was we worked together as a community to try to thoughtfully and creatively address some of the same challenges that are impacting the whole city. And I think bringing that approach of being collaborative is what I’m going to do in the mayor’s office.<doc-sep>
Tuesday’s elections in Denver included an army of candidates and two first-in-the-nation ballot initiatives, offering voters several chances to disrupt the status quo. They took those opportunities, mostly. Voters turned out in record numbers: The total of 185,081 ballots cast was higher than for any municipal election in recent city history. About 39 percent of the city’s registered voters weighed in, the highest for a general municipal election since 1991. Together, they opened the door for potential changes to the city’s leadership. Four of the city’s leaders will have to defend their seats in a runoff election June 4 — including Mayor Michael Hancock and three council members. In a speech on Tuesday, a fired-up Hancock said he was ready to fight with his “back up against that wall.” RELATED: Denver election results 2019 It has been rare for incumbents to face a runoff in recent years. It last happened in the mayor’s race in 1995. And only one sitting council member, Susan Shepherd, has been defeated in recent years. Runoffs occur when no candidate achieves more than 50 percent of the vote. “There was a message sent last night,” said Denver political analyst Eric Sondermann. “This is a city very open to change right now.” Others credited the change to the city’s rapidly shifting population. “It’s an indication of the dynamic of the new people moving into the city,” said pollster and political consultant Rick Ridder. “… They’re not attached to anybody. There’s no attachment to the City Council person.” Meanwhile, voters demonstrated that they still have an appetite for liberal policies: They approved a new law that will decriminalize psychedelic psilocybin mushrooms. Still, the results were distressing to some in the city’s progressive circles. Initiative 300, the “Right to Survive” campaign, failed by a huge margin, with more than 81 percent of voters rejecting its attempt to guarantee new rights for people living in public spaces. “So we literally decriminalized mushrooms but not people experiencing homelessness,” tweeted voter Jessica Zender — a sentiment shared by others on social media. The well-funded opposition had warned that the broadly worded measure would hurt the city’s ability to manage encampments and offer services. “If you did that, it would turn into San Diego the next day,” said voter Brett Stamm, 35. Who’s still running? On Wednesday, the remaining candidates were gearing up for one last month-long sprint. Councilwoman Mary Beth Susman faces the starkest challenge: She trails candidate Amanda Sawyer in East Denver, where development concerns have riled suburban neighborhoods. Live election results There’s also Councilman Albus Brooks, who finished ahead of challenger Candi CdeBaca by only about 300 votes — 2 percentage points. CdeBaca has accused Brooks of siding with developers in the rapidly gentrifying district, while Brooks says he’s creating a model for growth that benefits the community. The runoff for mayor will pose a complicated question for some voters. Giellis has promised to rein in development and improve the city’s leadership, a theme that she shared with all of the challengers. But she, like Hancock, received significant campaign support from developers and neither of the other major candidates — Lisa Calderón and Penfield Tate — has pledged to support her. Giellis could use their help. Hancock ended up with 39 percent of the vote in the final tally. Giellis took 25 percent, followed by Calderón at 18 percent and Tate at 15 percent. If the same electorate shows up on June 4, Giellis would have to win over about 70 percent of the other challengers’ voters to beat Hancock. But she faces intense skepticism from some supporters of Calderón, in particular, because of her time as a leader in the River North development zone. Giellis says that she was hired to manage development, not encourage it. “Whoever wins, it still creates a Denver of haves and have-nots, and everyone else struggling to survive in the city,” said organizer Justine Sandoval, whose family is from northeast Denver. “I’m really, really just torn today, thinking about how I’m going to handle that situation. This is the worst possible outcome for me.”