in second place. If their percentages hold steady, the two will head to a runoff election on June 6. Still, there are plenty of votes yet to be counted; as of 11:30 p.m. April 4, when the Denver Elections Division called it a night, just over 108,000 votes had been tallied, and there are 524,250 registered voters in the city.
Johnston and Brough had the largest war chests in this campaign, with $3.5 million and $2.4 million in funding, respectively. In the most recent release from the Denver Elections Division, at 2 p.m. April 5, Johnston had 24.67 percent of the vote, while Brough had 21.73 percent. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters move to the runoff.
Throughout his campaign, Johnston focused heavily on housing and homelessness, two of the major problems facing the Mile High City, and promised to end homelessness in his first term as mayor. In debates and forums, the former Colorado state senator offered specifics on how he would build ten to twenty micro-communities of tiny homes and converted motel rooms to get people now living on the street into transitional housing.
Brough, on the other hand, pitched Denver voters on the combination of her executive experience — as chief of staff for former mayor John Hickenlooper and president and CEO of the — and the empathy she's gained through a difficult life journey. Brough's father was killed when she was just an infant, and she lost her husband to suicide after his struggle with addiction.
Both candidates have largely avoided negative rhetoric throughout the campaign season. That would likely change in a runoff, and even if they didn't start slinging mud at each other, both are supported by independent expenditure committees that could do the dirty work.
An electoral mid off