Attorney Nick Gradisar will be handed the figurative keys to the city as he held a significant lead in the mayoral runoff election at press time Tuesday night over his opponent, Steve Nawrocki.

Gradisar tallied 11,858 votes to Nawrocki's 8,564, according to unofficial results posted by the Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder's Office Tuesday night, with more votes to be counted but not anywhere near enough to change the outcome.

"That must have been the winds of change that blew through here last night," Gradisar said at his campaign party at Zaragoza Hall upon seeing the election results.

Gradisar becomes Pueblo's first mayor in decades, as Pueblo previously had a city council/city manager form of government. Now, Gradisar will lead the executive office of the city, with the council serving as the legislative arm.

Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert "Bo" Ortiz reported that about 20,500 ballots had been received by 4:30 p.m. Tuesday and all of those had been counted. The ballots turned in between 4:30 and 7 p.m. still needed to be counted. A total of around 62,000 ballots were sent to voters for the runoff election. In the general election in November, just over 39,000 individuals cast votes for mayor.

The runoff was made necessary because neither candidate got the 50 percent of the vote plus one that would have won the election outright in the November general election.

There were a total of 16 candidates who were on the ballot for mayor in the general election.

Gradisar, who led the charge to establish a mayoral form of government in the city via a ballot measure in 2017 and who led all candidates in fundraising, received 5,459 votes in that election, while Nawrocki ended up with 5,026 votes.

Former City Councilwoman Lori Winner finished third in the race with 4,955 votes — 71 votes behind Nawrocki — and City Council President Chris Nicoll was fourth after amassing 4,951 votes.

The final order of the 16-candidate mayoral election following Nicoll in fourth place was: Dennis Flores (3,347 votes); Larry Atencio (3,022); Randy Thurston (2,672); Ted Lopez Jr. (1,940); Gary Lee Clark (1,575); Charlotte Perez (1,373); Jody Voss (1,043); Tom Croshal (913); Janet Wilson (870); Larry Fancher (645); Z. Marie Martinez (620) and Alexander Lucero-Mugatu (602).

As many as 35 individuals expressed interest in running for mayor, but many did not get enough signatures from city voters to get their names on the ballot.

rseverance@chieftain.com