Oh so close
Mendoza comes within one vote of winning mayoral race

City Council candidate Joe Darak, left, tells mayoral candidate Harry Mendoza the official results of the municipal election during a party at El Rancho on Tuesday night. Mendoza gathered 39.97 percent of the votes. He needs at least 40 percent to be elected mayor. The mayoral election is going to come down to the provisional ballots which will be counted Friday morning. [Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Close is an understatement.

Mayoral candidate Harry Mendoza was so close to winning 40 percent of the vote Tuesday evening and avoiding a runoff against his closest competitor, Ralph Richards that just one more vote his way would have done it.

According to the city, Mendoza brought in 1,405 of the 3,515 votes counted Tuesday evening, a razor thin 0.03 percent short of what he needed to win the election outright.

But that's just considering the votes counted Tuesday evening. There's still a stack of provisional ballots to go. They're the ballots voters get to fill out if they show up at a polling station but aren't on the registry. If the city finds out they were registered with some other station, the vote counts. If not, it's thrown out. The city will be counting those ballots and recounting the ones it counted Tuesday Friday morning.

But Mendoza isn't waiting until then. According to the numbers Mendoza said he got from KYVA, which got its numbers from the totals posted at each polling station, he received 41.3 percent of Tuesday's votes, just enough to get him out of a runoff. He said he'd be checking the station's numbers with the city's today.

"We're just going to go down to see the city clerk and go from there," said Mendoza, who was keeping up with the evening's vote counting from El Rancho banquet room, which his camp had decorated with balloons and a "congratulations" sign.

Richards, meanwhile, is just glad he's still in the race.

Mendoza took the lead as soon as the absentee and early voting ballots were tallied and never let up, losing only the eastside district to Mary Ann Armijo, and even there, where Armijo has been a City Council representative for the past four years, by only 17 votes. The only other question surrounding the race for the rest of the night was who, if anyone, would join him in a runoff.

If the provisional ballots don't put Mendoza over 40 percent Friday, it will be Richards, who brought in 797 votes Tuesday, 22.67 of the total.

"Very nerve-racking," said Richards, who spent an anxious evening at City Hall watching the votes come in and calculating the percentages as the city clerk posted new numbers district by district.

"I guess the people are putting me through this to build my character," he added with a smile.

He's hoping the provisional ballots keep Mendoza below 40 percent Friday and give him a chance to square off against the front runner. If they do, the city must hold a runoff within 30 days.

"I love a good race," Richards said. "I've always been a good competitor."

Armijo, who stayed away from City Hall Tuesday afternoon, followed the numbers from Don Diego's Restaurant. Considered one of the front-runners throughout the race, she finished the evening in third place with 729 votes.

Larry Winn, who did show up at City Hall, finished fourth with 315 votes, not quite what he had hoped for, but not too far off from what he expected, either.

Winn at least took solace in the feeling that he raised some issues that might not have gotten the same attention in his absence, like the importance of maintaining and expanding the city's trail system.

"My purpose in running was to bring certain issues to the fore," said Winn, who built his campaign around two key issues: the city's depleting water supply, and its quality-of-life resources.

Whether he decides to run again, he said, will depend in large part on whether he likes what the next administration does with Gallup.

Either way, and whoever gets elected, he added, "I'm going to keep pushing for the things I care about."

In any case, the mayor's race wasn't the only close call of the evening.

With 251 votes out of 614, Roger Landovazo pulled out a 40.88 percent victory for the City Council's east end seat. Barbara Stanley trailed with 156 votes.

On the west end, meanwhile, John Azua pulled out an even more resounding victory, taking just shy of 48 percent of the votes cast in that race.

In the race for municipal judge, incumbent Linda Padilla successfully held off challenger Anthony Dimas with 1,702 votes to 1,507.

Voters also approved a local minimum wage increase to $7.50 per hour Tuesday. Faced with two proposals, they chose the City Council's over a citizens group's. The council's plan proposed a more gradual increase than the citizens group's and did not propose an annual increase to keep up with inflation.