Highlights from Yemi Mobolade's watch party on Tuesday, May 16, 2023 at the COS City Hub in Colorado Springs. According to preliminary, unofficial results, Mobolade defeated Wayne Williams by about 15 percentage points, becoming the city's first elected Black mayor and the first Colorado Springs mayor who isn't a registered Republican in the more than four decades since the city began electing mayors directly in 1979. (Video by Skyler Ballard/ The Gazette)
That sound you heard Tuesday night in Colorado Springs was a seismic shift in the political foundation under Colorado's second-largest city.
Yemi Mobolade, an unaffiliated, first-time candidate, didn't just beat veteran Republican politician Wayne Williams by double digits in the city's mayoral runoff — the Nigerian immigrant upended the board in a once reliably right-leaning city that has been moving toward the center by leaps and bounds in recent elections.
According to preliminary, unofficial results, Mobolade defeated Williams by about 15 percentage points, becoming the city's first elected Black mayor and the first Colorado Springs mayor who isn't a registered Republican in the more than four decades since the city began electing mayors directly in 1979.
"Yemi has tremendous crossover appeal," Republican consultant Daniel Cole told The Gazette on Tuesday night.
Cole, who ran an independent group that supported Williams in the first round but sat out the runoff, said internal polling predicted Mobolade's sweeping win.
"Polling showed him winning all the Democrats, the vast majority of unaffiliateds and a significant chunk of Republicans, too," he said.
Running as a business-friendly moderate in the nominally nonpartisan election, Mobolade appears to have energized voters from across the political spectrum, while Williams battled critics from all sides, including fellow Republicans.
None of that would have mattered, however, without the city electorate's leftward shift.
Mayoral candidate Wayne Williams prepares to announce his defeat Tuesday at The Pinery.
As recently as a decade ago, Colorado Springs and its surrounding El Paso County were known nationally as Republican strongholds, but as Colorado has turned more solidly blue, the city and county have moved in the same direction, albeit more slowly.
Last November, for instance, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis barely edged Republican nominee Heidi Ganahl within city limits and lost to by just 4 percentage points countywide, a far cry from the 20-point margins Republican statewide candidates used to rack up in the county.
That change in voter sentiment, as Colorado Springs begins to resemble other formerly Republican-leaning Front Range counties like Jefferson and Arapahoe, lay the groundwork for a candidacy like Mobolade's, but the dynamics surrounding Williams and his relationship with a divided local GOP helped seal his fate.
Williams acknowledged as much in his concession speech, delivered just minutes after initial vote totals posted.
"It's clear Colorado Springs is less conservative than it used to be," he told supporters. "When I was chairman here (of the El Paso county GOP) we had no Democratic state reps. Now, we have three. So there are significant changes that have taken place, and I congratulate Yemi on an excellent campaign."
Previous mayoral runoffs in Colorado Springs have pitted a Republican stalwart against an unaffiliated or Democratic finalist, but in those cases — when outgoing Mayor John Suthers defeated challenger Mary Louise Makepeace in 2015, and when Steve Bach defeated City Council veteran Richard Skorman in 2011 — Republicans set aside their differences and got behind the more conservative candidate.
Williams should have benefited from the GOP's advantage. A El Paso County GOP chairman and former secretary of state, county commissioner and county clerk, he's held office nearly without interruption for two decades. But divisions within the local Republican Party and lingering rifts after a bitter first round in the mayoral race prevented Williams from enjoying the consolidated Republican vote that propelled Suthers and Bach to easy wins.
The bruising first round left Mobolade largely unscathed as the two leading Republican candidates — Williams and fellow city council member Sallie Clark — battered each other relentlessly, driving up each other's negatives.
During the five-week sprint to the runoff, Williams trained his fire on Mobolade, but his relentless attacks proved ineffective. Countering Williams' claims that his opponent was a dangerous liberal, Mobolade won endorsements from several prominent local Republicans, including Clark, who finished just behind Williams in the first round.
Through it all, Mobolade campaigned on bringing the city together, a message he repeated after declaring victory.
“This is our win,” Mobalade told a boisterous crowd of supporters. “We are Colorado Springs. It’s a new day in our beloved city. Do you believe that? Colorado Springs will be become an inclusive, culturally rich, economically prosperous, safe and vibrant city.”
Cole said it was evident on the ground and in the data he reviewed that Mobolade had that most elusive of campaign qualities: momentum.
"Yemi had an enormous amount of enthusiasm behind him," he said. "That’s important, because enthusiastic voters make sure their friends vote, too."
While turnout often increased by about 10% between first rounds and runoffs in Colorado Springs municipal elections, Cole said it appears turnout in the runoff jumped by roughly twice that amount, with 20% of the runoff's voters having skipped the initial round.
"I think enthusiasm for Yemi is the reason why," he added.
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