COLORADO SPRINGS – The burning question surrounding the Colorado Springs mayoral race isn’t whether John Suthers will win. It’s whether he can garner the votes needed to avoid a post-election run-off.

Even Suthers agrees that’s probably not going to happen. Given a packed field of six contenders plus a write-in candidate, it’s unlikely anyone will come away with a majority on April 7. If no candidate tops 50 percent, then the two leading vote-getters will square for a May 19 run-off election.

“I think it’ll be difficult with six candidates,” Suthers said. “But our goal all along was to be in the run-off and win the run-off, and we feel pretty good about our chances.”

It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Suthers, 63, doesn’t place in the top two. Suthers, who left office in January after 10 years as Colorado Attorney General, appears to have all the advantages: He enjoys enormous name recognition; he’s leading in the polls; he’s raised four times as much as his closest competitor, and he’s running the most ads.

Then again, “With municipal elections, you have to be very careful,” said Bob Loevy, a longtime Colorado Springs political analyst and professor emeritus at Colorado College.

“You would have to say John Suthers is the odds-on favorite, but he can’t be elected on the first round unless he gets 50 percent plus one vote, and he has two fairly strong candidates running against him,” said Loevy.

The strongest of those would be Mary Lou Makepeace, 74, a former Colorado Springs mayor who’s running to Suthers’ left in the non-partisan race. El Paso County Commissioner Amy Lathen, 47, is vying with Suthers for the pro-business, economic-development vote.

A Feb. 24 poll conducted by Luce Research for the Colorado Springs Independent/Fox21 found Suthers ahead with 30 percent, followed by Makepeace with 22 percent and Lathen with 8 percent. A whopping 33 percent were undecided.

Then there’s former city councilman Joel Miller, 45, who’s fourth in the polls but has emerged as a wild card to watch. He’s challenging Suthers from the right with a limited-government platform that includes opposition to the $250 million City of Champions downtown revitalization project.

“Joel Miller could be a dark horse,” said Loevy. “I don’t expect him to place in the top two, but if a lot of anti-downtown, anti-City of Champions vote goes to him, that makes it just that much more difficult for Suthers to make it on the first round.”

This is only the second mayoral election since the city switched to the strong-mayor system in 2010, which was decided by a run-off. In 2011, Steve Bach was elected mayor even though he had placed second to Richard Skorman in the general election. Bach opted not to run for reelection this year.

The four major candidates have more in common than not: They’re all Republicans who support a stronger economic climate, a focus on infrastructure improvements, and greater collegiality in city government, which means candidates hoping to gain traction against Suthers need to focus on relatively fine distinctions.

Case in point: Miller has moved to separate himself from the pack by calling into question Suthers’ commitment to the Second Amendment. As attorney general, Suthers defended the state against a lawsuit filed by county sheriffs against the hotly contested 2013 bill limiting ammunition-magazine capacity to 15 rounds. While Suthers said he was just doing his job, Miller said he should have stayed out of it.

“Though he had no legal obligation to do so, he defended [Gov. John] Hickenlooper’s gun laws against 54 Colorado sheriffs,” Miller said on his website. “In his legal brief, he stated that ammunition magazines are not arms and therefore do not fall under the Second Amendment.”

The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners SuperPAC echoed that argument in campaign mailers criticizing Suthers.

“As Attorney General John Suthers attacked your Second Amendment rights in court,” said the mailer distributed earlier this month.

Suthers counters that he was in fact obligated by his oath of office to defend all state laws, even those with which he disagrees, including the magazine limit.

“The rule of law requires regardless of your personal opinion about it that you defend it,” Suthers said. “But the irony is — and this is classic politics — I’ve had an A rating from the NRA throughout my career, and now I’m being attacked by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners for doing what my role was within the rule of law.”

Not that he’s surprised. “I understand politics. I’m not the first one they’ve done that to. It’s a fundraising mechanism for them.”

Lathen has also promoted her gun-rights bona fides with an endorsement from Paul Paradis, owner of Paradis Sales Firearms and an organizer of the successful 2013 recall election against former Senate President John Morse.

Without question, however, the candidate who offers the sharpest contrast to Suthers is Makepeace. A fixture in Colorado Springs civic and community life for decades, she’s poised to capture the not-insignificant Democratic and left-leaning electorate, as well as a sizeable chunk of the youth vote.

In Colorado Springs, at least, Makepeace’s name recognition rivals that of Suthers. She served as mayor from 1997 to 2003 and spent 12 years on the city council. After leaving office, she headed the Gill Foundation’s Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado and now teaches political science at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.

Suthers was enthusiastically endorsed by the right-leaning Colorado Springs Gazette, while Makepeace won the endorsement of the liberal Independent, which called her “inclusive, welcoming people of color and, yes, even gays and lesbians into community conversations.”

“Every candidate claims that he or she can unite our city, but only one candidate has decades of success building broad-based consensus,” said the March 18 editorial. “Makepeace leads quietly. Steadily. Purposefully. She ensures that all voices and positions are heard.”

Much of the election has centered on improving the city’s crumbling infrastructure as the population soars over 460,000, which plays to one of Makepeace’s strengths. During her years as mayor and council member, she was involved in the creation of new parks and trails, and led the successful ballot battle for the Springs Community Improvements Program (SCIP), which provided funding for 34 infrastructure projects.

“I want us to innovate. Let’s have new ideas, try new things,” Makepeace said in a YouTube ad. “Let’s not always be planning for 1995.”

Of the top candidates, Lathen may be the one who suffered the biggest hit when Suthers jumped into the race. An advocate of economic development, investment and regional partnerships, Lathen was poised to attract the pro-business support that has since swung to the better-known Suthers.

Still, Lathen is running a spirited campaign aimed at turning out the grassroots while touting her familiarity with city and county issues. Among her proposals is the reduction and ultimate elimination of the business personal property tax, a “Blight to Bright” urban renewal program, and the creation of a “vibrant growth environment” that will help the city retain and attract young professionals.

Suthers may have grown up in Colorado Springs, but lately “he’s been working in an attorney’s office in Denver that has nothing to do with local service delivery,” said Lathen as she mobilized volunteers for a recent afternoon of door-knocking near Woodmen and Powers.

Suthers had raised $304,068 as of last week, with Lathen placing a distant second at $79,150, according to campaign-finance figures compiled by the Gazette. She doesn’t have the budget for television ads, as Suthers does, but what she lacks in fundraising she’s trying to make up for in energy.

“I go everywhere,” she said. “It’s very grassroots. It’s coffees. It’s town-hall meetings. It’s forums. We’re walking precincts, we’re out there with the voters, we’re doing everything we need to do.”

What voters want to know most about Suthers has nothing to do with the issues. Consider that in 2010, Suthers was elected to a second term as attorney general with more votes than any other candidate on the statewide ballot, including the Democrat Hickenlooper.

So why is he running for mayor? “I get asked that question more than any other,” said Suthers during a meet-and-greet at his campaign headquarters on trendy North Tejon Street, a one-minute walk from Starbucks.

“I can boil it down to this: number one, my love for Colorado Springs, and number two, the fact that I think that over the course of my career I’ve developed a skill set and leadership capabilities that would be of great benefit to Colorado Springs at this point in time in its history,” Suthers said.

Loevy quips that sprawling Colorado Springs is “a suburb in search of a city,” but it’s also the nation’s 41st largest municipality, more populous than Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Minneapolis or New Orleans.

“Look around you, folks,” said Suthers at last week’s UCCS debate. “Cities either grow economically or they stagnate. Which way are we going to go? It’s up to all of us to determine that, and I think the next couple of years are the tipping point.”