Tulsa Mayoral Race Narrows To 2 For November Runoff

The election in Tulsa narrowed down the field of potential mayoral candidates to Monroe Nichols and Karen Keith.

Both have won campaigns before: Keith as a Tulsa County Commissioner and Nichols as an Oklahoma State Representative.

Nichols finished first and Keith second, in a close finish with Brent VanNorman, who was 438 votes behind Keith, and a spot in the runoff election.

56,585 votes were cast in the mayoral contest, translating to a 26% turnout.

The runoff is Nov. 5, in the general election.

“More people are potentially going to vote in November in a Mayor's race than ever before; that means more voices, making themselves heard for a mayor’s race in our city, and that's really exciting,” Nichols said.

In separate appearances on “6 In the Morning” Wednesday, both candidates expressed surprise at the near three-way tie but said they expected to immediately start the campaign for November, hoping to pick up enough votes to win.

Keith said she would continue to work on a nonpartisan campaign and stress her work with city and county government.

“Those are the type of things I like to work on, bringing people together in a collaboration, and so whether it's working on the Gilcrease Expressway, getting that done, whether it's working on the levees or building a new industrial park in a very challenged census tract, these are things I've done I'm proud of,” she said.

“Last night, I thought it was a clear message from voters that it's not about who has been around the longest or who you've known the longest; it's about who can lead this city into the future,” Nichols said.

The Tulsa County Election Board reports that there were 219,897 registered voters in the City of Tulsa during this election.