Black Candidate in Denver Leads Field for Mayor

Voters were expected to elect their first black mayor here Tuesday.

Norm Early, 45, the city’s district attorney since 1983, was leading a field of six other candidates in a race that has focused on municipal economics rather than race.

Sam Tarkington, director of the Denver Election Commission, said he expected a “mediocre” voter turnout because Early “has such a substantial lead over the other candidates.”

The city of 467,000 is 12% black and 23% Latino.

The only other strong candidates were City Auditor Wellington Webb, 50, who also is black, and lawyer Don Bain, 56, who is white.

The question appeared to be whether Early would win a majority to avoid a June 18 runoff election.

Webb is a popular Democrat long active in local politics. Bain is a conservative Republican in a city that is 2 to 1 Democrat.

At a time of racial tension in many U.S. cities, racial issues have played little part in local politics. The city’s economic growth has overshadowed most other problems.

In the other major issue before voters, homosexual civil rights were up for review under a proposal that would remove the words “sexual orientation” from the city’s comprehensive civil rights protection ordinance.

A Denver Post poll Sunday showed that 55% of voters were opposed to a change in the anti-discrimination ordinance approved last October.

Gov. Roy Romer, Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) and outgoing Mayor Federico Pena opposed the change.

In Philadelphia, meanwhile, former Mayor Frank Rizzo and an ex-district attorney headed the Republican field in Tuesday’s mayoral primary. Another former district attorney was the slim favorite in the Democratic race.

In the Republican race, Ron Castille hoped to hold off a late charge from Rizzo, a former mayor and police commissioner. Municipal finance consultant Sam Katz was a distant third in the latest polls.

Ed Rendell was the front-runner among Democratic candidates, but the former district attorney faced a last-minute surge in the polls by City Councilmen Lucien Blackwell and George Burrell. Political outsider Peter Hearn was considered a long shot.