https://www.thegatewaypundit.c...slide-dem-stronghold

The race for mayor in liberal Pueblo, Colorado, was turned upside down Tuesday when a Republican member of the city council ran for mayor and won.

Back in November 2022, city council president and owner of Graham’s Grill and Ruby’s, Heather Graham, announced her run for mayor of Pueblo, Colorado. Graham may have seemed like a long shot, being a Republican in the famously liberal city.

“This community that we love has been going in the wrong direction the last few years. I just can’t sit back and do nothing,” Graham said when she launched her campaign, according to The Pueblo Chieftain. “My short time in office has shown me how change is possible and not enough is happening.”

She went on to say that she was too limited in being able to make meaningful change for Pueblo on the council, so she wanted to trade up for the mayor’s office in the famously left-wing state.

Graham ran against Democrat incumbent Mayor Nick Gradisar.

In the end, it appears that Graham’s message was a winning one with voters.

On Tuesday, Graham won her election and Gradisar conceded after the first round of returns were reported, news station KKTV reported.

The results won’t be made official until Feb. 1, but the early results seemed clear, with Graham’s count standing at 14,171 to Gradisar’s 8,355.

Graham won a contest in a crowded field, as nine candidates declared their candidacy. But in the end, Graham came away with 62.9 percent of the vote to Gradisar’s 37.1 percent.

The winning candidate was born and raised in Pueblo and graduated from Pueblo South High School in 2007.

When he was elected in 2019, Gradisar was actually the town’s first mayor in 60 years, as the position had been eliminated, the Colorado Sun reported at the time.

Despite Pueblo’s long leftward tilt, though, the town did flip to Trump in 2016, despite voting for Obama, the Sun reported. Pueblo flipped back to blue for Joe Biden in 2020.

Graham was quick to point out that she is also the first woman to be elected mayor.

“The first female mayor, that’s exciting … it’s been a long run. I’ve had lots of help along the way and I’m excited to carry this title for the next four years,” Graham said, according to KOAA-TV.

“I think that people have been dissatisfied with the leadership over the last five years and they’re ready for a change,” she added.

Her supporters were thrilled with the victory.

“I’m surrounded by tons of citizens who had concerns that they brought to me and hopefully over the next four years, we’re able to do something about it,” she added.

Graham said that she is looking forward to starting up her transition team to plan for taking office.

“I’m most looking forward to taking the concerns of the constituents and actually providing solutions to the problems that they’re having,” she said.

Turning the tide, one Dem stronghold at a time.

Perhaps some of the recent light shed on vote fraud and the prosecutions is making a difference.

Great news. We can do this.

!Si podemos!

Good news for our side! Keep 'em coming!

Best of luck to Ms. Graham!!

Trump won Pueblo County in 2016. This candidate is young, and with a younger city council hopefully thing will change. Her opponent has been in politics for many years, and is generally regarded as an insider good old boy. For the first time in my life I'll be working on a local campaign. A Republican running for County Commissioner next year. And, I think she's going to win.

I have friends who live in Pueblo, place is ridden with drugs,corruption and crime. Hopefully she can make a difference.

It's always been a bit of a rough town. A large steel mill is the biggest employer. As with every town there is good and bad areas. Homelessness is out of control, but that's any town today.

Excellent news, one can only hope this is the start of change along the Front Range

Nice. Now the momentum needs to spread to other cities in Colorado, and to our lame ass governor.

Don't think we'll ever see the same thing in Boulder or Denver. Interestingly, both the Governor and both Senators endorsed Gradisar. Of course, they are party men, but they usually don't go out of their way to endorse in a mayor's race of a town that barely has 200,000 people. I would also add the real loony leftist crap doesn't go very far in Pueblo. Yes, it's a Democrat stronghold, but we are a blue-collar, working-class town. We don't have the highly educated liberal elitists in numbers here.

Good news indeed. Hopefully this will start a trend.

quote:

Originally posted by goose5:
Don't think we'll ever see the same thing in Boulder or Denver. Interestingly, both the Governor and both Senators endorsed Gradisar. Of course, they are party men, but they usually don't go out of their way to endorse in a mayor's race of a town that barely has 200,000 people. I would also add the real loony leftist crap doesn't go very far in Pueblo. Yes, it's a Democrat stronghold, but we are a blue-collar, working-class town. We don't have the highly educated liberal elitists in numbers here.

Given that, hopefully the new mayor can make a huge difference and turn some heads elsewhere in the state....and country!

I grew up in Pueblo. Been gone a long time. My cousins who live 25 miles out, try not to be in town after dark. They are very unhappy with the crime these days. Maybe some new blood in the mayors office can help clean things up. Fingers crossed..

Pueblo has a very large Hispanic population. From what I've seen/heard, the Hispanics who are here legally are not happy with all of the illegal immigration. It's nice to see Pueblo turn a corner, hopefully.

All I know about Pueblo is that's where old Public Service Announcements on TV used to tell you to write for the gov's Consumer Information Catalog: Pueblo, Colorado 81009.

Oh, and John Meston, one of the primary writers for the first few years of the Gunsmoke TV show (and all of the radio series) was born there and he sometimes worked the name of his hometown into his hundreds of scripts for the show.

quote:

All I know about Pueblo is that's where old Public Service Announcements on TV used to tell you to write for the gov's Consumer Information Catalog: Pueblo, Colorado 81009.

That's how I know about it too.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
Turning the tide, one Dem stronghold at a time.

Indeed, sir.