Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s popularity is holding steady after 11 months in office, according to a new poll released Wednesday. However, the findings suggest that a sales tax increase he puts before the November ballot could meet some skepticism from voters.
Johnston remains confident in his tax proposal, which was unveiled Monday. It would provide an estimated $100 million a year to expand the city’s affordable housing work, including by preserving or building tens of thousands of homes that are affordable to people now priced out of the city. His own internal polling shows two-thirds of the city would support the tax increase, he said.
But the June survey of 409 registered voters in Denver for the nonprofit Colorado Polling Institute found that a large majority – 64% – believe taxes in the city are already high. Among them, 35% said the city’s taxes were “way too high,” while 29% said they were “high but acceptable.”
Still, it’s rare for Denver voters to reject tax increases, and one pollster noted that many voters had moderate views on the issue.
Those responses were collected before Johnston announced his proposed 0.5% sales tax on affordable housing. If the City Council gives its blessing in the coming weeks, that new tax would share the November ballot with a new 0.34% sales tax to shore up the finances of Denver Health, the city’s safety-net hospital.
If both are approved, the city’s effective sales tax rate would rise from 8.81% to 9.65%, making Denver stand out along the Front Range.
The two-part poll, conducted by Democratic polling firm Aspect Strategic and Republican firm New Bridge Strategy, was conducted between June 13 and 18 through a mix of online and telephone interviews. The margin of error is 4.85 percentage points.
Good news for the mayor: the poll showed that 48% of voters rated him positively. That’s essentially flat compared to the 46% who rated Johnston favorably in a Colorado Polling Institute poll in August, just his second month on the job.
But the share watching Johnston rose significantly, from 22% in August to 38% in June, according to the results.
That’s partly due to Johnston’s rise in prominence as he has been in the news, including for spearheading a new homelessness strategy and responding to the migrant crisis. Only 11% of voters said in June that they had no opinion or had never heard of the mayor, compared to 32% in August.
His positive ratings in the new poll contrast with the results of a Magellan Strategies survey of 1,595 Denver voters conducted in May. That poll found that 43% approved of his performance – while 50% disapproved completely. The margin of error was 2.45 percentage points.
The survey was mainly carried out for the municipality’s headquarters to gauge support for a possible tightening of the deadlines. The contract with Magellan was valued at up to $29,000, city spokesman Robert Austin said. The poll also showed the council’s approval rating underwater, with 36% approval and 49% disapproval.
Regardless of his own level of support, Johnston assumes voters will approve his tax request in November.
To the Colorado Polling Institute’s tax question, Lori Weigel of New Bridge Strategy assessed the answers with some nuance. She noted that almost every voter is inclined to say they pay too much in taxes. That’s why the poll gave respondents the opportunity to rate the city’s tax burden by offering several options: way too high, high but acceptable, about right and lower than what they should pay. one would expect.
“When we look at the ‘high but acceptable’ or ‘about right’ (responses), it’s kind of a majority that leans toward that middle spectrum,” Weigel said.
The Johnston government has done its own polling. During a meeting with Denver Post reporters on Tuesday, the mayor said his data shows 65% of the city’s voters would support an “Affordable Denver” sales tax increase. That figure remained stable regardless of whether respondents owned or rented their homes, he said.
“We were really surprised that there’s complete alignment between renters and homeowners, and that, not surprisingly, you’re also getting tremendous support from younger voters on this issue,” Johnston said. “As we know, if you can’t afford to live here, everything else is secondary.”
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