Denver Mayoral Runoff 2011: Voters Decide Between Chris Romer, Michael Hancock In Tuesday's Runoff

In what has turned into a hard-fought, and at times ugly, runoff race, Chris Romer and Michael Hancock have until 7 p.m. Tuesday night to wait for their fate to be decided by Denver voters.

The final days of Denver’s mayoral runoff have been filled with plenty of traditional rallies, debates and get-out-and-vote initiatives. There have been discussions about fundraising and Romer’s loaning his own campaign approximately $500,000 of his own money bringing his personal contributions to just shy of $675,000.

According to Fox31, it’s just an expression of how badly Romer wants the job, Romer says in a statement to Fox31:

I’m going to leave it all on the field. I think I’m going to be a really good mayor and I’m willing to put my own money in.

Romer’s campaign has raised a total of $2.6 million and Hancock’s campaign has raised $1.5 million.

And although Romer was the early frontrunner in the original mayoral election, in a recent poll, Hancock was leading Romer, with 49 percent of Denver voters saying they would vote for Hancock, 39 percent for Romer. However, voter turnout was low for the original election and it will remain to be seen if either of these candidates did enough to energize the Denver electorate.

And in a runoff that was dominated by endorsements of either candidate, one of the most anticipated voices, Governor John Hickenlooper, Denver’s former mayor, did not throw his support towards either candidate. Although interested in possibly endorsing one of the candidates early in the runoff, Hickenlooper was advised to stay out of the race according to the Denver Post.

The election is mail-in only, so if voters haven’t mailed in their ballots by Monday, they should drop their ballots off by hand at any of the 13 Voter Service Centers around Denver to be sure their vote is counted. Find the nearest Service Center with this search tool provided by Denver’s city government website.