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)
Mobolade’s decisive victory represents a seismic political surprise in Colorado Springs, long known as a conservative stronghold. Though the city’s municipal elections are nonpartisan, Mobalade, who is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, will be the first mayor not affiliated with the Republican party since Colorado Springs started electing mayors 45 years ago. He has promised a more “inclusive, culturally rich city.”
“It’s a new day in our beloved city. Do you believe that?” Mobolade asked a crowd of about 900 who had gathered to cheer him on at a watch party at the COS City Hub on Tuesday night. “Because I do. … Colorado Springs will become an inclusive, cultural rich, economically prosperous, safe and vibrant city on a hill that shines brightly.”
