Mike Johnston’s U.S. Senate candidacy has challenged progressive orthodoxy on education and other issues, yet he’s still the front-runner. When Mike Johnston was appointed to a state Senate seat in one of Colorado’s most diverse districts in 2009, the high school principal knew he had some questions to answer. He was White, the son of a mayor and grew up in the ritzy ski town of Vail, and he graduated from Harvard and Yale; his northeast Denver constituents were roughly a third Hispanic, a fifth Black and nearly all poor. To make the contrast even starker, Johnston was replacing Peter Groff, the first African-American ever elected president of Colorado’s Senate, who was leaving to work for President Barack Obama’s administration. Aware of the optics, Johnston planted his new office in the heart of the troubled district, across from the charred remains of a shopping center recently burned down in a gang turf war. The ribbon-cutting barbecue attracted a few hundred locals — and a skirmish when a member of the Bloods gang was jumped by four Crips during his opening speech. Johnston chose to keep speaking, wanting to show he wasn’t afraid to confront the district’s problems (while a security team broke up the fistfight). The next morning, police called to say there had been a drive-by shooting in front of the campaign office. “You can still see the bullet holes,” Johnston says, pointing to three round grooves in the building’s metal siding. | 
