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John Walsh took an early lead over Leora Joseph in the race to be Denver’s next district attorney in preliminary election results Tuesday night.
Because there are no Republican candidates in the race, the winner of Tuesday’s primary election between the two Democrats will almost certainly become Denver’s next district attorney.
Walsh, a former U.S. attorney for Colorado, had received 58% of the vote with 60,700 votes tallied at 7 p.m. Tuesday, putting him ahead of Joseph, the director of the state Office of Behavioral Health and a former chief deputy district attorney in the 18th Judicial District, which covers Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties.
The winning candidate in the November general election will take office in January for a four-year term, replacing current Denver District Attorney Beth McCann, who served two terms.
The district attorney is Denver’s highest-ranking law enforcement official and sets the city’s overarching approach to prosecuting crime.
Both candidates have decades of experience as attorneys.
Walsh worked as a prosecutor in California and spent 15 years in private practice in Colorado before he served six years as U.S. attorney, leaving that role in 2016 to return to private practice.
Joseph spent more than 20 years as a district attorney in Massachusetts and Colorado and served as chief of staff to former Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman.
During a debate in early June, Walsh named his top priority after taking office as addressing Denver’s violent crime, especially youth violence, and said he wanted to improve public safety downtown and bolster the police force.
Joseph said her top priority in office would be to ensure crime victims are heard and supported in the criminal justice system. She also focused her comments on police accountability and the intersection of courts with defendants’ mental health.
In the only two other contested district attorney primaries in the state, George Brauchler took an early lead over Dagny Van Der Jagt in the newly-created 23rd Judicial District, with 69% of the vote at 7 p.m., in Douglas, Lincoln and Elbert counties.
In El Paso County’s Fourth Judicial District, incumbent Michael Allen came in ahead of David Wilson in early returns, with 69% of the vote at 7 p.m.
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