Denver Mayoral Candidates Race to Get Money Before Public Financing Deadline

The Fair Elections Fund, which matches small donations at a nine-to-one ratio, has been a game-changer this Denver election cycle — ultimately contributing to more than twenty people who initially declared their intentions to run for mayor, with seventeen mayoral candidates landing on the ballot.

"The Fair Elections Fund has been the lifeblood of our campaign. For small grassroots campaigns like ours, who don’t rely on the big funders, they allow us to do everything other candidates can do," says Lisa Calderón, who ran for Denver mayor in 2019.

But the implementation of the fund has also created a new deadline. February 28 marks the last day that contributions to municipal candidates will be matched. And now, those running for mayor who are participating in the fund are racing to get as many qualifying contributions as they can before the deadline hits.

"I wish we could have it all the way up to when the ballots were dropped," says Ean Tafoya, an environmental activist running for mayor.

The Fair Elections Fund, which Denver voters approved in 2018, matches donations of $5 to $50 for candidates who agree to lower contribution limits and take donations only from individuals and small donor committees. The fund was pushed by advocates who want to limit the overwhelming influence of big money in politics.

Thirteen out of the seventeen mayoral candidates that made the ballot are participating in the Fair Elections Fund. Each candidate for mayor can access up to $750,000 from the fund in the run-up to the April 4 election, which has $8 million in fund dollars earmarked for it. So far, Kelly Brough, the former CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, has pulled in the most money from the fund of any mayoral candidate, with the current total at $530,491.41. Brough can still access $219,508.59 from any contributions made through February 28. But any made after that date won't be matched.

"Denver's Fair Elections Fund — which matches donations up to $50 from Denver residents 9-to-1 — will no longer match donations as of February 28th. So if I could kindly ask you to consider making a modest $50 donation to Kelly's campaign this week, I would be most appreciative," Andrew Feinstein, a local developer, wrote in a February 21 email blast.

"It’s beautiful because it’s empowering to those individuals to feel like their money is making a difference in this race," says Kwame Spearman, a mayoral candidate and the CEO of Tattered Cover Book Store. "To stop that before the fund has been fully disbursed, it just feels like a missed opportunity."

The February 28 deadline has to do with language from the ballot measure that set up the fund, which mandates that the Denver Clerk and Recorder's Office must authorize the final round of matching dollar payments at least two weeks before Election Day. March 21 marks two weeks before the April 4 election.

Payments are tied to campaign finance reporting deadlines, according to Lucille Wenegieme, a spokesperson for the Clerk and Recorder's Office, who points out that the next regular campaign finance filing date is March 17. Given that this date is so close to the March 21 deadline, Wenegieme says the office would not be able to "properly audit each qualifying submission, calculate payments and audit the calculations" if it sent out another round of matching dollars on March 17. That's why the deadline is at the end of February.

For Calderón and Tafoya, there's a lot more money to be accessed through matching contributions prior to the deadline. Calderón has received $116,794.98 in matching funds, while Tafoya has received $107,012.07. Both can theoretically still access over $600,000 if they get enough contributions before the month ends.

This weekend, Tafoya plans to host house parties to raise money for his campaign. And he will also host a concert on March 3 for 303 Day. The concert, at 2222 Broadway, will feature a "silent disco stage inside of a giant blow-up igloo," according to Tafoya, whose campaign is selling tickets bought before February 28 for $5 apiece before raising the price to $10. Tickets for a second concert, on March 4 at the Mercury Cafe, will use a similar pricing format prior to the deadline.

"I really try to leverage the arts," says Tafoya. "That’s what I'd like people to see. We paid all the artists."

In the final push before the February 28 deadline, Calderón has been letting people know that any money they give will go a long way.

"We tell our targeted voters that for the first time in the mayoral race history, you have a chance to become a big investor by maximizing your donation by nine times," says Calderón, who adds that she believes this system has resulted in lower-income individuals appreciating that a smaller donation of $5 will turn into $50, and that a larger one of $50 will turn into $500.

And although the cut-off for matching dollars is approaching, she notes that the fund money has turned her campaign into a much more finely tuned machine than what it was in 2019.

"It’s more money than I raised in the eight months that I was running in 2019 in a shorter period of time," says Calderón, who points out that she can focus more on actually meeting voters, with campaign staff handling other logistics. "It's so much better than the first time. It helps when you know what you’re doing."

While Spearman is holding fundraiser events every night over the next week to get as many matching dollars as possible, he feels that the end of the Fair Elections Fund spigot is an "unfortunate outcome." Spearman can also still access over $600,000.

"I think a lot of people are starting every day moving forward to focus more and more on the race, and they’re not going to be able to participate in a way that earlier voters could," Spearman says.

But even if the fund doesn't get completely tapped out in the lead-up to the April 4 election, it will still serve a purpose. For races in which no one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters head to a runoff. And any of the runoff candidates who are participating in the Fair Elections Fund will receive 25 percent of the amount that they've gotten so far from the fund for the runoff race on June 6.