About a week before Election Day, this year’s Boulder city elections appear to be drawing relatively modest campaign spending, according to reports filed with the city last week.
So far, campaigns have raised about $125,000 in total, excluding loans and in-kind contributions. Much of the money has gone toward yard signs, mailers and ads in local news outlets.
Read: BRL’s 2025 Election Guide
That’s well below the roughly $345,000 spent during Boulder’s 2023 election, when Boulder held its first mayoral race. That election also featured a prominent ballot measure related to enforcement of the city’s camping ban. In 2021, when two prominent measures concerning occupancy limits and CU South appeared on the ballot, campaigns spent more than $270,000.
With the election about a week away, independent expenditure committees still have a small window to play a larger role in the contest for four open Boulder City Council seats, where groups of organizers are trying to flip at least two — those held by Mayor Pro Tem Lauren Folkerts and Councilmember Nicole Speer, both endorsed by the Boulder Progressives — to make the council more conservative or “pragmatic.” Boulder’s elections are officially nonpartisan.
There are 11 candidates in total for the four open seats, and all incumbents — Folkerts and Councilmembers Speer, Matt Benjamin and Mark Wallach — are seeking reelection. The rhetoric this cycle has largely focused on potential ideological shifts, though Boulder Reporting Lab’s coverage has highlighted concrete policy differences among candidates. These include their positions on bike infrastructure, enforcement of the camping ban, whether to extend Boulder’s home-hardening rules to existing homes, not just new ones, more wildfire-resilient, and how to balance the city’s tipped wage policy between the interests of restaurant workers and business owners.
Most candidates have met the fundraising threshold needed to qualify for public matching funds, including all four incumbents as well as challengers Jenny Robins, Rob Kaplan and Aaron Stone.
By accepting matching funds, candidates effectively agree to limit their total campaign spending to about $24,000, which keeps most city council races relatively low-cost.
However, independent expenditure committees can spend beyond those limits to support or oppose candidates.
New Era Colorado, a statewide advocacy and political organization that mobilizes young voters on progressive issues, has spent about $6,400 in Boulder’s 2025 election. The group has endorsed Folkerts, Speer and Isaacson.
Other independent expenditure committees include Boulder Progressives, which has spent $1,717 and endorsed Folkerts, Speer and Benjamin; Stop Antisemitism Colorado, which has not reported spending; and Axiom Action, which has also reported no spending. One Main Street, a group that has previously spent significant sums in Colorado state and local elections on behalf of mainly moderate Democrats, considered involvement but ultimately decided against getting involved in the Boulder election.
During Boulder’s 2023 mayoral election, the Working Families Party spent nearly $24,000 in support of Mayor Aaron Brockett and Speer and against former Councilmember Bob Yates in a close election. Yates, who did not accept matching funds, spent about $37,000 on his campaign.
This year’s city ballot includes one measure to make an existing sales tax permanent, with no active campaigns supporting or opposing it, likely contributing to the overall quieter election cycle. There are also two county ballot measures, including a new sales tax to temporarily fund mental health services, a proposal that initially drew criticism from some city councilmembers but ultimately won the council’s support.
The most active campaign of the year was initially shaping up to be “Pearl For You,” a proposed measure to close West Pearl Street to most vehicles. The group raised about $27,000 in less than three months, according to election filings, before abandoning the effort over concerns about an economic downturn under the Trump administration, among other reasons.
The campaign donated its remaining funds to the Boulder County Farmers Market and the Parking Reform Network, Kurt Nordback, chair of the Pearl For You campaign, told Boulder Reporting Lab.
So far, about 10% of Boulder County’s 242,681 registered active voters have cast their ballots, according to county data.
The next deadline for campaign finance reports is Thursday, Oct. 30, according to city election guidelines. Election Day is Nov. 4.