The morning after Election Day, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and members of his team stepped into the sun at Civic Center Park and smiled.

Doughnuts and coffees in hand, some of them joked about seeing each other look happy for the first time in weeks.

“It’s a huge relief,” Johnston said with a laugh after being asked about voters emphatically approving the Vibrant Denver bond the night before. “And it’s a tremendous jolt of excitement.”

The celebration came at just the right time for the first-term mayor. A year ago, he suffered a major loss when Ballot Issue 2R — a Johnston-backed initiative that would have set aside an estimated $100 million per year for housing affordability efforts — narrowly failed in the election. And after weeks of negative headlines about the mayor leadin

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