It seems the two Denver mayoral candidate douche rockets have succeeded in pissing off everyone on both the right and the left. Last week we observed how the candidates had decided that the 20% of active GOP voters were suddenly a constituency worthy of getting jabbed in the eye. This, despite the fact that they make up a larger share of the voting electorate than some of the constituencies the pandering squishbags have been chasing like little boys after the ice cream truck.

Well, based on early turnout figures, it appears it's not just the right that has become frustrated and annoyed by the mayoral race to the bottom. In fact, Republican turnout is slightly higher as compared to Democrat turnout at this point in mail ballot returns, with Republicans making up almost 20% at this point during the first round, and slightly over 21% now. 

As of Friday, turnout was barely above 10%. For comparison, the last competitive Denver Mayor run-off, in 2003, had a turnout of 45%. Between Michael Hancock's crackpot ideas like urban farms and Chris Romer's pure politician pandering on issues like school vouchers, it appears the candidates have annoyed a vast majority of the electorate enough that they'll sit this one out. We predict this race won't even crack 30% turnout when it's all said and done.

A small turnout probably favors Romer, but he needs a lot of favor to pull this one out. In the Denver Post poll, conducted by SurveyUSA and released on Sunday, Romer was behind Hancock in every age demographic under 65. Low turnout elections tend to have over-sized older populations, giving Romer a potentially small bump, though we don't know the age makeup of the voters who have returned ballots so far. 

We don't think the SurveyUSA poll is completely right nor do we have a whole lot of trust in SurveyUSA in general. They botched the Bennet-Romanoff primary polling pretty badly last year, even putting Romanoff up three points a week before he got shellacked in the final results. But we do think that Hancock is now leading this race, and it will be up to Romer's GOTV operation to pull it out for their guy. While having a superior campaign organization, Romer barely beat Hancock by 1.5 points in the first round, which doesn't inspire much confidence they'll be able to perform well enough to make up the gap this time.

But at this point, we're observing the race more like a carnival sideshow, watching to see which of the midget candidates can pull off an upset in what may become the lowest Mayoral election turnout in modern Denver history. Whoever wins will limp across the finish line lacking a mandate. For a city with serious structural budget issues, that is not a good place to start a four year term. 

(Photos courtesy of BitBoy and TrojanDan)