Cities › CO
Denver
Mayor Mike Johnston · Democratic · in office since July 17, 2023
The Executive Summary
Mayor Mike Johnston (D) has led Denver since July 2023; Denver is not yet scored — a mayor's record opens only after enough years in office for the lagged data to say anything fair; the card below says exactly where each metric stands.
| Unemployment 4.1% (2025) | Not yet scored |
| Median household income $92,504 (2024 · constant 2024 $) | Too early |
| Poverty rate 12.1% (2024) | Too early |
| Government form | Strong mayor |
Mike Johnston has served long enough, but Denver has too few years of data inside the scoring window to fit a trend yet. Outcomes are lagged a year before they are attributed, and a trend needs at least two annual points after that; this fills in as each source publishes.
Sources: unemployment — BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics · median household income — Census ACS 1-year, CPI-U deflated · poverty rate — Census ACS 1-year (B17001). Unemployment runs through 2025; income and poverty through 2024. The 2025 unemployment point is an eleven-month average — October 2025 was never collected during the federal shutdown — and it is included and flagged here under the same rule the state pages apply to the same statistic (one statistic, one rulebook, as of v2.6; through v2.5 city pages excluded it instead, and the changelog says so).
Scored on economic outcomes only — unemployment, real median income and poverty. Crime, housing and health are not yet included, so this is a narrower measure than a governor’s. Government form follows standard reference classifications and was not verified city by city. Methodology
Denver sits in CO, whose governor Jared Polis holds a scored statewide record (No. 2 of 29). State outcomes are not the mayor’s grade — a city is not a state — but they’re the nearest verified context today.