Mayor Wellington Webb promised to mend the wounds from a bitter runoff campaign as he celebrated his election to a second term.
"Now what we want to do is bind the city together. There's no north, south, east or west. There's just one city - Denver," he told hundreds of supporters at an outdoor victory celebration Tuesday night.With all 430 precincts reporting, Webb had 66,884 votes, or 54 percent, to 56,725 votes, or 46 percent, for City Councilwoman Mary DeGroot, according to the Denver Election Commission.
Webb had finished 97 votes behind DeGroot in the May 2 general election, forcing a runoff.
Webb, 54, campaigned for 36 hours straight before the runoff, shaking hands in front yards and restaurants and greeting motorists on street corners. DeGroot, 43, also campaigned hard in the final hours of her effort to become the first female mayor of this city of 493,000.
Webb, Denver's first black mayor, carried all parts of the city except the majority-white southeast, DeGroot's stronghold. Webb won 40 percent of the vote there.
Conceding defeat, DeGroot told about 300 downcast supporters that she had been beaten by "a formidable political machine."