Pueblo mayoral election heading to runoff between Heather Graham and Nick Gradisar
The Pueblo mayor’s race is clearly heading to a runoff between City Council President Heather Graham and incumbent Nick Gradisar, according to the last round of vote tallies released by the Pueblo County Clerk’s office early Wednesday morning.
Graham came in first place with 23% of votes. Gradisar trailed by nearly 500 votes and received 21% of the vote.
Amid a crowded field of nine candidates on the ballot, Gradisar and Graham decisively received more votes than the other contenders. Gradisar received approximately twice as many outside monetary contributions as Graham, but the other candidates also trailed the pair in fundraising dollars.
How Graham, Gradisar reacted
Graham was jubilant at her watch party with family and friends at Brue’s Alehouse on the Pueblo Riverwalk Tuesday night after the first round of results showed her leading the field of mayoral candidates.
“I’ve had a lot of support from people on both sides of the aisle. That’s what makes a difference because people aren’t just going and voting ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican,’ they’re actually voting for the candidate: and that’s what it should be,” Graham told the Chieftain.
More: Complete local election results
She said that the results show that Pueblo is ready for a change in leadership.
Gradisar gathered with his supporters at the Firefighter Union Hall in Downtown Pueblo. He told them after the first round of results came out that he was grateful for support and that they would continue working for the runoff election.
He said that it “doesn’t really matter” that he came in second place because he still qualified for the runoff.
“It will be a new election and a new campaign tomorrow,” Gradisar told the Chieftain Tuesday night.
What will the runoff look like?
Pueblo’s city charter necessitates a runoff election if one mayoral candidate does not receive more than 50% of votes.
The runoff election will take place Jan. 23, and ballots will be mailed on Jan. 2, City Clerk Marisa Stoller confirmed with the Chieftain in an email. This election will be administered through her office, as Pueblo County elections staff will be preparing for the presidential primary in March.
City council recently approved an equipment rental agreement with Dominion, the company that also supplies election equipment for Pueblo County and most other counties in Colorado. The ordinance was passed unanimously Oct. 23 without any questions from councilors or public testimony.
Gradisar is the city’s first mayor in recent memory after voters approved a charter amendment changing municipal government structure in 2017. He won the first round of votes in November 2018 with a lead of 433 over Steve Nawrocki and bested him in the runoff election by 3,699 votes.
How the other candidates fared
While Graham and Gradisar clearly qualified for the runoff election, the other seven candidates were all thousands of votes behind the two frontrunners.
Chris Nicoll, a former city councilor and cybersecurity expert who was endorsed by the conservative Christian group Forging the Future, came in third place with 13% of votes.
Nicoll conceded and thanked his supporters in a Facebook post Wednesday.
“I want to express my appreciation to the other candidates who ran in this race. It’s a big commitment to be a candidate and I think we had an excellent group of people who performed admirably to bring forward their ideas and visions in this race,” Nicoll wrote.
Randy Thurston came in fourth and at-large councilor Dennis Flores placed fifth.
District 1 councilor Regina Maestri came in sixth and term-limited District 2 councilor Larry Atencio placed seventh just 17 votes behind Maestri.
Tom Croshal came in eighth and Deryk Trujillo received the lowest number of votes.
Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Graham and Gradisar will face off in January runoff for Pueblo mayor
