Denver City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca is facing an avalanche of opposition spending and a well-backed runoff challenger four years after the proud democratic socialist ousted a two-term incumbent.

This time, though, she has company — as part of a trio of liberal runoff candidates seeking to push the council leftward.

The runoff elections, with voting underway and ending June 6, could set the course for a more assertive legislative counterweight to the next mayor if CdeBaca retains her seat and voters in adjacent districts elect two progressive newcomers who also have the backing of the Denver Democratic Socialists of America and the Colorado Working Families Party.

The prospect has rallied much of Denver’s political and business establishment in support of their more moderate runoff opponents, including first-term Councilman Chris Hinds in central District 10.

The high stakes have fueled significant outside spending and sometimes-wild claims amid arguments about the direction of the city.

“I mean, it’s the same money that was in it back in 2019 — same power brokers, same people fighting to get their seat back,” said CdeBaca, who is running for re-election to represent a redrawn District 9 that encompasses neighborhoods north and east of downtown, including parts of Park Hill.

Her opponent is Darrell Watson, a small business owner and longtime community advocate who has chaired the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. He portrays himself as a more pragmatic progressive.

“We need to have leaders that will look across the room and collaborate with folks, especially those that don’t agree with them,” Watson said during a May 3 endorsement event in front of the City and County Building. He was flanked by several of the 16 current and former council members who have backed him. Five serve with CdeBaca now.

Taking part was former Councilman Albus Brooks, whom CdeBaca defeated in a hard-fought runoff in 2019. Brooks said the city was “at a crossroads” and called on voters to elect “pragmatic leaders that reach across all of our neighborhoods, all ethnicities, all socioeconomic backgrounds and bring folks together to make sure that we’re building unity within our community.”

Spending in the District 9 race since the start of the campaign has now eclipsed $1 million, making it the most expensive council race. That total includes direct contributions to candidates, Fair Elections Fund matches from the city and independent expenditures reported by outside groups and committees — some of which are fueled by “dark money,” or undisclosed donors.

All that spending has gone more than 2-to-1 toward defeating CdeBaca.

She shrugged off that spending and Watson’s endorsements in an interview, saying: “It’s actually not a good thing to have the stamp of approval of the status quo.”

No matter the outcome of the three runoffs, a majority on the 13-member council is out of reach for DSA-backed candidates. But that group and the state’s Working Families Party hope to add more voices to argue for alternatives to policing, more compassionate responses to homelessness — including direct opposition to the city’s camping ban — and more government involvement in the housing market, along with new renter protections.

In two other council districts, candidates backed by both groups lost outright in the April 4 election.

But progressives notched victories in the at-large race, with state Rep. Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and Sarah Parady winning those two seats.

“Literally the soul of our city is at stake and its people are at stake,” District 8 candidate Shontel Lewis said of the June 6 runoffs, pointing to the progressive candidates’ bottom-up community approaches as better suited to solve Denver’s problems.

Other runoffs in central and northeast Denver

In the northeast Denver district, which spans from East Colfax to Central Park and part of Montbello, Lewis, who finished a term last year as a Regional Transportation District board director, is running against Brad Revare, a former nonprofit leader. Term-limited District 8 Councilman Chris Herndon has endorsed Revare.

In District 10, which extends from downtown east to Congress Park, the DSA and Working Families Party are backing challenger Shannon Hoffman, a community activist and educator, against Hinds, the incumbent.

All three council races went to runoffs because no candidate won more than 50% of the vote on April 4. The top two candidates were close in vote shares in Districts 8 and 9, with Lewis and CdeBaca leading, while in District 10, Hinds led Hoffman by nearly 9 percentage points.

A fourth council runoff contest will be on the ballot for District 7, which mostly covers south neighborhoods. But second-place candidate Nick Campion withdrew late last month, after the runoff ballot was set, so Flor Alvidrez will win that open seat by default.

The three remaining competitive council runoffs have drawn intense interest from progressives in part because the mayoral runoff features two moderate candidates in Kelly Brough and Mike Johnston. Johnston has drawn endorsements from several progressive former candidates, but third-place Lisa Calderón’s recent support came off as lukewarm at best, with her calling voting for Johnston “a harm reduction strategy.”

“I think people are … really focusing in on the folks that they actually see as progressive champions” in council races, said Wendy Howell, the Working Families Party’s state director.

Hoffman, in District 10, sees “an opportunity to have more of a check and balance on our mayor” by electing “representatives that are going to bring forward and prioritize the voices of the people.”

During the runoff period, more than a dozen outside groups that are unconstrained by contribution limits have reported more than $629,000 in independent expenditures through Thursday, according to campaign finance records. It’s been spent on door-to-door canvassing, voter contact, mailers, billboards and other activities.

The bulk of that has gone to support Watson, Revare and Hinds, with smaller amounts used to back the DSA-supported candidates — or to oppose them, with CdeBaca coming under the most fire.

Similar mailers sent by a group called Denver Voters for Sanity promoted the more mainstream candidates while portraying CdeBaca, Lewis and Hoffman as either “too extreme” or “dangerous” for Denver, warning of a “socialist takeover.” The group’s donors include the Apartment Association of Metro Denver and Republican businessman Pete Coors.

CdeBaca, noting those mailers use photos of her and Lewis with wide smiles, quipped: “Nothing is scarier than laughing women of color, I see!”

Hoffman said such mailers were “trying to leverage fear-mongering,” something she’s pushed back against in conversations with voters who’ve seen them.

CdeBaca’s District 9 race features perhaps the starkest contrasts, owing in part to CdeBaca’s outspokenness in office.

She drew national attention this month, along with threats, after she answered a question during a candidate forum about reparations by describing a possible strategy of taxing white-owned businesses to support businesses owned by people of color.

Watson, who is Black, seized on her comments as “divisive,” and CdeBaca said he had since fanned the flames by boiling down her idea — which she hasn’t actually proposed — to a “white tax.”

Opposing “those who just want to make a statement”

But the battle lines aren’t so neatly drawn across all three races. In District 10, Hinds, the incumbent, is receiving some of the same union backing as CdeBaca and Lewis.

And former Mayor Wellington Webb, against the political establishment’s support of the moderates, has endorsed CdeBaca and Lewis, in addition to Hinds.

The more moderate candidates’ backers argue they would join in the give-and-take of the City Council, making more of an impact.

Political strategist Andrew Short, whose One Main Street Denver committee has reported spending $73,000 on the council runoffs to defeat the DSA-backed candidates, characterized his favored candidates as progressives, too — the kind who “want to collaborate and get things done, and want to work within the system against those who just want to make a statement.”

He said they would help create upward mobility in Denver.

“The type of city that Denver’s going to be for the next 20 or 30 years is what’s at stake,” Short said. “Are we going to really move the needle on these issues and find more market-based approaches to (housing) affordability?”

The committee, which has focused much of its runoff spending on voter contact and canvassing, is an offshoot of One Main Street Colorado, a coalition of labor unions and business donors. While its Denver committee has reported some union contributions, most of the money has come from its nonprofit, which doesn’t disclose donors.

Ideological divisions are playing out to varying extents in each council race.

“When I’m talking to voters, I don’t think they necessarily care or focus on labels,” Revare said of District 8, which has had a more cordial campaign. “They just want the City Council working collaboratively toward getting things done for our district.”

In District 10, Hinds said he considers himself pretty liberal, and he’s endorsed by the Progressive Democrats of America. Yet he’s heard himself characterized as a “MAGA” candidate, an invocation of former President Donald Trump’s tagline.

The distinctions center more on approach, he said, noting CdeBaca’s practice of throwing barbs and sharp-elbowed public comments at her colleagues.

“It isn’t about left or right,” he said. “It’s that we need people that are willing to have conversations.”

But Denver DSA chapter co-chair Katie Blakey said campaign donors point to where the candidates’ priorities lie. The candidates her group backs are largely supported by small donations from community members, she said, while the more moderate candidates receive donations from apartment associations, investors, real estate groups, corporations and lobbyists.

“They all have a vested interest in keeping things the same,” Blakey said in an interview.

Should the remaining slate of progressive candidates win their races, Blakey said, they’d have strength in numbers to shift debates in major ways.

“With these three races, it’s also a choice between continuing to increase police budgets while basic services are significantly underfunded,” Blakey added later in a text message. “And continuing to arrest and incarcerate the most vulnerable Denverites instead of addressing the root causes of poverty and crime.”

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