Experts: Colo. Springs election results hard to predict

One day before the polls close for the Colorado Springs Municipal Election, political experts say it’s difficult to predict who will win the mayoral and City Council elections.

Josh Dunn, a political science professor at UCCS, told KRDO NewsChannel 13 that there’s not enough polling information to make a reliable prediction.

“It’s always very difficult making predictions about local elections because you just don’t have really good polling data,” Dunn said. “It takes money to poll and these races don’t draw the attention of the pollsters and media organizations in the way that high profile races do, like governor and Senate and those kinds of races.”

There are six candidates for mayor and one write-in candidate. John Suthers is anticipated to bring in the most votes, but it’s unclear whether he’ll garner the 50 percent plus one needed to avoid a runoff election. Others in contention are El Paso County Commissioner Amy Lathen, former Colorado Springs Mayor Mary Lou Makepeace, former city councilman Joel Miller, Tony Carpenter and Lawrence Martinez. The write-in candidate is Moses Humes.

“You could imagine Suthers winning the election outright. You could imagine a Suthers and Makepeace runoff election, maybe a Suthers and Amy Lathen runoff election,” Dunn said.

A potential runoff election would happen on May 19, with ballots being mailed out on April 24. Dunn said predicting a winner from the potential runoff scenarios is difficult. In 2011, Richard Skorman edged Mayor Steve Bach in the municipal election, but Bach ended up winning in the runoff election.