Incumbent dominates mayoral money race

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock raised more money in January than his three closest competitors combined, taking in $173,000 to end the month with nearly $1 million in the bank.

The numbers show that Hancock remains a difficult target, despite his swarm of challengers. A single mailed advertisement for a citywide race can cost tens of thousands of dollars — and Hancock’s prodigious fundraising is only building his financial lead.

His next closest challenger was Jamie Giellis, who posted $70,000 for the month, followed by Penfield Tate with $42,000 and Lisa Calderón at $15,000.

His January donations included city executives, attorneys, smalldollar donors and more, including $800 from Trammell S. Crow.

Crow is the son of Trammell Crow, the late founder of the national development company now embroiled in the Colorado Convention Center bidding scandal. But he is not a part of the business.

Giellis retained her financial advantage over her competitors, and she started to diversify her base. Her initial fundraising was heavily dependent on companies associated with three deep-pocketed local developers — the Zeppelin family, Paul Tamburello and Ken Wolf.

The Giellis campaign now has counted about 250 individual donors, including more than 150 donations for January.

Penfield Tate counted about the same number of donations, but his fundraising total was smaller than Giellis’.

Calderón’s campaign reported more than 100 individual donations for January, with a tendency for smaller sums. She has described her campaign as “doing with people” what other campaigns do with money.