DENVER-
Undeterred by an election fiasco, blizzards and other missteps, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper easily won election to a second term on Tuesday, with only token opposition in a city known for bruising ballots.
The boyish-faced restaurateur defeated Danny Lopez, a city employee who barely campaigned, by a large majority. Some 40 percent of nearly 190,000 registered voters cast ballots.
With 68,960 votes counted, Hickenlooper had 60,359, or 88 percent, to 8,601 votes for Lopez, or 12 percent.
Hickenlooper, 55, didn’t immediately declare victory, saying he would let others do that for him.
Hickenlooper said he will spend the next four years on initiatives he started in his first term, collaborating with business and nonprofit organizations and promoting open government.
“We’re going to continue to focus on the core principles. You know, we ran four years ago on transparency, we would not make decisions in back rooms, we would try and measure things and hold ourselves accountable. Especially, we would be collaborative and inclusive, we would bring the city together with the suburbs and drive home the message that united our success is much greater,” he said.
Other races on Tuesday’s ballot included city auditor, clerk and recorder, 12 council races and a measure asking voters to impose term limits on district attorneys. That measure appeared headed toward passage.
Hickenlooper was criticized when a lengthy ballot, software problems and mechanical breakdowns created long lines at polling places in November and delayed some elections results for days. Critics said the mayor ignored repeated warnings that the city wasn’t prepared.
Alton Dillard, spokesman for the Denver Election Commission, said the panel was better prepared this time with more counting machines for the election, which was mail-in only.
Hickenlooper came under pressure this winter when snowstorms clogged streets for days and shut down the city-owned Denver International Airport for 45 hours. Critics said the city’s response was too slow.
Instead of throwing him out of office as they did previous mayors buried by snowstorms, city residents took Hickenlooper up on his offer to take a sledding holiday.
“People don’t expect you to be perfect or have all the answers. But people do expect you to work hard, never quit and they expect you to tell the truth. If you messed up, get out and say the places where you messed up,” Hickenlooper said before the polls closed Tuesday. He said his predecessors did not keep their staffs working after blizzards hit Denver and that that made a difference in his run for re-election.
According to campaign finance reports through March, Hickenlooper raised $543,000 and spent $148,000, while Lopez raised $16,000 and spent $4,200.
In his first run for public office, Hickenlooper easily beat then-City Auditor Don Mares in 2003.
He considered running as a Democrat for governor last year but decided against it, saying he hadn’t yet fulfilled his obligations as mayor.
Denver city offices are nonpartisan.
Kevin Roberson, a 37-year-old civil engineer registered as a Republican, said he was especially impressed with the mayor’s environmental policies.
“He has a very good plan for parks, recreation and a green print, environmentally friendly Denver,” Roberson said.
A former geologist who opened Colorado’s first brew pub in downtown Denver, Hickenlooper erased a $70 million city budget deficit by cutting employees’ salaries, including his own, and requiring unpaid leave.
He began a program to end homelessness and named a woman who grilled him on the issue on the campaign trail to lead the effort. And he helped lure the 2008 Democratic National Convention to Denver.
Hickenlooper, who succeeded the term-limited Wellington Webb, won in 2003 with a series of commercials poking fun at what he called the “nonsense of government,” including city policies that raised parking meter rates and drove shoppers out of downtown. Television ads showed him zooming around on a scooter with a change machine, plugging meters to save hapless motorists from tickets.
In 2005 he boosted his profile among Democrats and Republicans by appearing in television commercials parachuting out of a plane to win support for a plan to loosen Colorado’s tax limits.
This year, he hardly campaigned at all.
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