More Denver voters said they disliked Mayor Mike Johnston in a new poll released Thursday, even as optimism about the city as a whole has improved since he began his term.
The share of respondents who viewed Johnston favorably in the Colorado Polling Institute survey generally held steady at about 46%, compared to 48% in a poll last year. But the proportion who had an unfavorable view of the mayor increased to 46% from 38%.
“He’s not making converts to the Johnston cause, but he’s also dealing with some really difficult and long-enduring issues,” said Lori Weigel, a Republican pollster involved in the CPI, which uses a bipartisan research team.
The poll was conducted Aug. 14 to 19 using phone interviews and online surveys with 417 likely 2026 Denver voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points. The same group conducted similar polls in 2023 and 2024.
Despite the ambivalence on Johnston, who is two years into his term, a majority of voters in the survey also saw him as starting to move things in the right direction
“These voters have not totally given up on him,” said Kevin Ingham, the CPI’s Democratic pollster. “The question really becomes, do they feel like enough (progress) has been made at the point in time when he starts asking voters for their vote?”
Those who support Johnston cite his focus on homelessness and his efforts to get things done and keep his promises as their reasons for support. The voters who don’t favor the mayor have more varied reasons for their dislike, but the recent layoffs and the city’s financial management were mentioned by many.
Weigel suggested that the rising unfavorability could be in part because people who previously had no opinion of the mayor have started to form one.
“Some of that increased negativity is actually coming from the mayor’s own base, among registered Democrats,” Ingham said. “We’ve seen a 10-point increase in the share of Democrats who now view the mayor negatively.”
Denverites weigh in on Mayor Mike Johnston’s first two years, from cheers to disappointments
A majority of voters said Johnston had made at least some progress on homelessness, with an uptick in the share of people who said he’d made “significant progress.” In 2024, 44% of respondents said he had made some progress but needed to do more, and 8% said he had made significant progress. This year, those figures were 39% and 13%, respectively.
“There has been progress on his numbers on things like affordability of housing and public safety … but not (much) on what he was elected on, which was homelessness,” Ingham said.
A majority of voters say Johnston is moving things in the right direction on public safety. About a third of respondents said they felt “very safe” in Denver, which represents a 12-point increase from responses in 2023.
Still, nearly half of respondents say there is too little of a police presence in the city.
Slightly more than half of voters said they thought the city is generally headed in the right direction, compared to 44% who said the same in 2023. More are also feeling optimistic about downtown’s recovery.
The voters who participated ranked their top issues, in descending order, as: homelessness, housing affordability and crime.
Just over half of the people surveyed said they had never heard of the city’s $950 million Vibrant Denver bond package, which will appear on the ballot this November and ask voters’ support for dozens of capital projects. Still, 65% were likely to support the package based on what they knew.
Only 4% said they are “very confident” that Denver spends taxpayer money wisely. About 39% were “somewhat confident” and 48% expressed that they weren’t confident.
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