Shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday, the vote split in the race for district attorney in the 18th Judicial District flipped to favor Republican candidate John Kellner by 50.13% over Democratic candidate Amy Padden’s 49.87%. Padden had led Kellner by a constantly shifting but razor-thin margin since Election Night. 

The race, which is for the top prosecutor spot in Colorado’s most populated judicial district, could be headed for a recount in a few weeks as the margin between the candidates has hovered at less than one point. 

An automatic recount happens when the difference in vote totals is half a percent or less of the winning candidate’s vote total. Kellner’s Thursday evening lead was 1,440 votes, or just outside the 0.5% requirement, as counts from the district’s four counties continued to trickle in. 

“The important thing right now, and the thing I’m most anxious and excited to see is, what’s the end result?” Kellner said in a phone call on Wednesday. “Frankly, at this point, it’s too close to call.”

On election night, Padden told the Denver Gazette “no candidate wants a race to be this close,” and acknowledged the challenge of flipping the DA seat from Republican to Democratic. The 18th District covers Douglas, Lincoln, Arapahoe and Elbert counties. 

Padden and Kellner are vying to succeed term-limited George Brauchler, a Republican.

By Thursday evening, 332,512 out of the total 568,430 votes counted in the district’s DA race came from Arapahoe County. Padden has maintained a sizable lead in the county since Tuesday, but by the end of Thursday her margin narrowed to 15 percentage points from 18 on Wednesday.

Kellner said he believes he and Padden both ran effective campaigns educating voters about district attorneys’ roles. 

“We’ve been out for a little over a year now really trying to get our message out and connect with more voters, and explain to them what a DA does and why it should matter to them, and why they should vote in that down-ballot race,” he said.  “It’s amazing to see this kind of engagement on this kind of race.”

Based on guidance from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, recounts occur only after county canvass boards certify an election’s results, so any recount likely wouldn’t happen until after Nov. 25. Counties have to finalize their vote counts by Nov. 13, and canvass boards have a Nov. 25 deadline to certify results. The deadlines are the same for each county. 

Each of the 18th District’s four counties has a much more decisive margin between Padden and Kellner than the overall count: Padden currently carries Arapahoe County, which has an estimated population of more than 650,000, by about a 15-point margin.  But Kellner has a 19-point lead in Douglas County, a 55-point lead in Elbert County and is ahead by 66 points in Lincoln County.