Denver Mayor Election Results Runoff: Hancock To Face Giellis

DENVER, CO – In unofficial results, incumbent Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock appeared to be headed for a runofff with second top vote-getter Jamie Giellis Tuesday in early vote totals.

In a stunning turnaround, final (unofficial) numbers released around 4:20 p.m., appeared to show that Denver voters approved a bid to decriminalize psilocybin or "magic mushrooms."

Final numbers showed 89,320, or 50.56 percent of voters approved of Initiated Ordinance 301, while 87,341 or 49.44 percent voted no. Vote totals will be officially verified in about a week.

Related: Denver Votes To Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms

In the mayor's race, the top vote getter must earn 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a runoff election on June 4.

In the final tallies, numbers showed incumbent Hancock with a significant lead at 68,787 votes 38.65 percent. Jamie Giellis was second highest vote-getter with 36,973 votes, or 25.71 percent.

“Don’t be disappointed," Hancock told supporters, as reported by the Denver Post. "We won tonight. And come June 4, we’re going to win again!”

Voters appeared to have rejected the ballot initiative the "Right to Survive" by a large margin.

Most incumbents won their city council seats, except in east-central Denver District 5,where two-term incumbent city council member Mary Beth Susman was running behind challenger Amanda Sawyer.

Other challengers in the mayoral race were Lisa Calderon with 32,839 votes and Penfield Tate with 26,213 votes. Kalyn Rose Heffernan had 4,431 votes and Stephan "Seku" Evans had 1,311 votes.

School shooting on election day

While candidates made their final push Tuesday, news broke that two student shooters had opened fire at the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, killing one student and injuring seven others.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock tweeted "Our hearts are breaking for Highlands Ranch as the community responds to a school shooting."

"Right to Survive" shot down by voters.

A citizen initiated ordinances also decided whether to repeal the Denver public camping ban, passed in 2012 Votes against Initiative 300 the "Right to Survive," were counted at 145,649 or 81.22 percent while "yes" votes were only tallied at 33,685, or 18.78 percent.

The day before polls opened, 24.25 percent of Denver voters had already cast their ballots through the mail, according to the Denver Elections Division.

A crowded field of candidates in the non-partisan mayoral election were challenging two-term incumbent Hancock. Hancock was running for his third-and-final term in an election that reflects the growing pains of the city. Hancock's challengers pointed to the downsides of Denver's surging population: Gentrification, transportation and crime.

Hancock suffered a hit to his reputation last year when he was accused by a former female security team member of sending unwanted sexual text messages in 2012. He apologized publicly for the incident. His son, age 22, was also caught on a cell phone insulting an Aurora traffic officer and threatening his job.

Hancock was the frontrunner in fundraising, with a war chest of more than $2.1 million, by far the largest in this race. Hancock pointed to his "Equity Platform" budget and Denveright land use and transportation plan. Other achievements include raising the minimum wage for city employees to $15 per hour, funding an affordable housing commission and pushing the expungement of low-level marijuana convictions. Hancock was endorsed by the Denver Post.

Jamie Giellis is an urban development planner and served as River North Arts District from 2014 until she stepped down to campaign for mayor. Giellis told Westword she's running on behalf of "communities in this city who have felt ambushed by the impacts of unplanned development in their neighborhood and frustrated by the city's lack of response to their concerns and lack of action to make things better." Giellis had raised $506,000 by election day. Supporters and Denver developers the Zeppelin family, led by son Kyle Zeppelin, are her biggest donors, having doled out tens of thousands of dollars for her campaign. She's endorsed by a handful of former city councilors and state lawmakers, as well as City Council Member Rafael Espinoza and State Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet.

Penfield Tate III, an attorney, served in the House of Representatives between 1997-2001, then in the State Senate between 2001-2003. He ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Denver against John Hickenlooper in 2003. Tate told Colorado Politics he was spurred to come out of retirement to run for mayor because he believed that the city's development plan was “ignoring and steamrolling neighborhoods over the last eight years for the sake of development."

Lisa Calderón, a community organizer, developed a reputation as a community fighter and has positioned herself as an affordable housing advocate who wanted to protect neighborhoods from gentrification through "resident-directed planning." Calderón sued the city in federal court after the cancellation of a contract, which she called a retaliatory attack by Hancock.

Black-horse candidates Kalyn Heffernan and Stephan "Seku" Evans did not raise significant amounts of money for their campaigns. There was also one write-in candidate.

Denver City Council races

Two at-large city council seats and 11 district seats were open this election.

Three incumbent city council members were running unopposed: Kevin Flynn (District 2), Paul Kashmann (District 6) and Jolon Clark (District 7). Two seats, District 1 and District 3 were open, drawing a wide field of candidates trying for a first-time seat.

Two at-large seats were up for grabs. In final unofficial results, incumbents Deborah "Debbie" Ortega was top vote getter with 91,406 votes, followed by Robin Kniech, who had 69,579 votes. Challengers tallies were: Johnny Hayes 15,471 votes, Jesse Parris 14,553 votes, Tony Pigford 35,316 votes and Lynne Langdon 26,423 votes.

In District 1, representing northwest Denver, Amanda Sandoval was ahead in final unofficial results in the open race of seven candidates with 5,735 votes. Other candidate totals were: Victoria Aguilar 1,809 votes; Sabrina D'Agosta 2,470 votes; Scott Durrah 1,444 votes; Prajwal Kulkarni 2,040 votes; David Sabados 1,766 votes and Michael Somma 3,124 votes.

In District 3, in southwest Denver, Jamie Torres and Veronica Barela were neck and neck throughout the night. In final unofficial totals, Torres pulled ahead as top vote getter. Torres had 2,679 votes, while Barela followed with 2,410 votes. Annamarie Martinez had 1,018 votes and Raymond Montoya had 536 votes. City council member Paul D. Lopez ran for Denver City Clerk and Recorder, leaving an open seat.

In District 4, in southeast Denver, incumbent Kendra Black, elected in 2015, had a commanding lead of 12,144 votes in the Wednesday afternoon final numbers over challenger Colleen Zahradnicek, who had 3,458 votes.

In District 5, in east-central Denver, by the Wednesday afternoon vote tally, Amanda Sawyer with 6,707 votes was ahead in a four-way race against two-term incumbent Mary Beth Susman who had 5,928 votes. Michele Fry and Stephen Replin had 2,621 and 1,227 votes respectively.

In District 8, in Denver's north-east side, including Park Hill and Stapleton, single-term incumbent Christopher Herndon with 9,386 votes, was easily trouncing five challengers: Miguel Ceballos-Ruiz with 1,828 votes; LaMone Noles with 1,136 votes; Erik Penn with 836 votes; Blair Taylor with 3,712 votes and Patrick Thibault with 1,425 votes.

In District 9, in the heart of Denver, incumbent council member Albus Brooks was ahead in the Wednesday totals with 7,513 votes, leading Candi CdeBaca with 7,224 votes, Jonathan Patrick Woodley with 1,411 votes and David Oletski with 634 votes.

In District 10, Wayne New was the early top vote-getter with 7,838 votes. Second was Chris Hinds with 6,086 votes. Tony Smith and Antonio A. Mendez followed with 2,824 and 3,321 votes respectively.

In District 11, Stacie Gilmore was ahead in final unofficial vote totals with 6,274 votes, beating Christine M. Alonzo, who had 2,231 votes.

City Clerk and Recorder

Along with former councilman Paul Lopez, candidates Sarah McCarthy and Peg Pearl were running for the open seat. The Wednesday numbers showed Lopez ahead with 52,994 votes, followed by Perl with 46.976 votes and McCarthy with 43,773 votes.