Story was updated at 11 a.m. Nov. 8.
Former City Councilor Steve Douglas said it was too early Tuesday night to call him mayor.
Douglas maintained a solid lead over rivals Rene Bullock and Joseph Drieling throughout the Nov. 7 balloting. As the unofficial results were released on Nov. 8, Douglas had 3,499 votes, Bullock 2,788 and Dreiling 805 votes.
“It’s the sixth time I’ve run, so I know how the trends can go on election night,” Douglas said.
Douglas ran for a seat on the Commerce City Council in 2011. He won a seat in 2015. He ran for mayor unsuccessfully in 2019.
“In the past, those first votes tend to set the trend and the rest of the votes kind of follow it,” Douglas said. “I just hope that’s what it is, that’s how it’s worked for the past 20 years.”
In the other council races, challenger Rocky Teter upset incumbent Jennifer Allen-Thomas in Commerce City’s Ward 2 by 578 votes to 521, according to the unofficial results.
In Ward 3, incumbent council appointee Renee Chacon was easily defending her seat against Rich Trujillo by 996 votes to 281 votes.
In Ward 4, incumbent Susan Noble maintained a narrow lead over challenger David Diop all night and into the morning. Noble had 1,478 votes to Diop’s 1,320.
With two seats open in the councilor at large race, incumbent Craig Kim and newcomer Charles Dukes claimed both over two challengers. Kim had 3,094 votes, Dukes had 2,634 votes, incumbent Craig Hurst had 2,045 and Ryan Keefer had 1,837 votes.
The new council is tentatively scheduled to be sworn and take their seats at the council’s Dec. 4 meeting. City Clerk Dylan Gibson said the city charter calls for that meeting on the second Monday after the final election results have been certified.
Douglas said his goals for Commerce City include tackling concerns with special districts, homelessness and taxes.
“Taxation is just crazy, and we need to rein the special districts in,” he said. “I’d like to see the way we manage special districts completely reformed. And then we have homeless people using us as a corridor, so we need to watch that.”