Republican incumbent Tom Jankovsky claimed the late lead in his race for reelection to the Garfield County Commission District 1 seat over Democrat Ryan Gordon late Tuesday night, but the race remained too close to call as of press time.

As of the latest update at 11:40 p.m. Tuesday, Jankovsky had 10,720 votes to Gordon’s 10,676, for a razor-thin 50.1% to 49.9% margin.

“It’s clear it’s going to be real close,” Jankovsky said just before midnight. “We’re waiting to hear how many ballots there are still to count. We just won’t know until tomorrow.”

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The race closely mirrored the 2020 race between Republican District 2 Commissioner John Martin and Democratic challenger Beatriz Soto, when Soto had the lead based on early returns, and Martin ultimately surpassed her as the more-conservative Election Day votes came in. Martin ultimately won by 501 votes.

“It’s exciting that it’s this close, and I’m happy to see as many people vote as did in Garfield County,” Gordon said. “Every vote is going to be counted, so we’ll see how it comes out.”

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The third batch of returns brought the number of counted ballots in Garfield County up to nearly 21,400, out of 36,844 total ballots sent out to voters for this election. 

Garfield County Clerk and Recorder Jean Alberico said Monday that she was anticipating a 65% turnout for this fall’s election, which would equate to about 24,000 ballots cast.

In other contested county races, the Republican candidates appeared headed toward election to the offices of Clerk and Recorder and Treasurer.

As of the latest report, incumbent Treasurer Carrie Couey had 10,734 votes to Democratic challenger Aron Diaz’s 10,223 votes.

And, in the open race to replace Garfield County Clerk and Recorder Jean Alberico, who is retiring after this year, Republican clerk’s office worker Jackie Harmon had 10,818 votes and Democrat Becky Moller had 10,135 votes, according to the unofficial preliminary results, with some ballot still to be counted.