Editor’s note: As the dust settled on Tuesday night’s election, City Desk reached out to both mayoral candidates headed to the Dec. 9 runoff election to ask how they plan to forge a path to a majority following a deeply divisive general election.
Today, we share responses from Darren White. On Friday, we will include reactions from Tim Keller.
Former Sheriff Darren White is calling the December runoff a vote for change, saying Mayor Tim Keller’s narrow lead shows voters are ready for new leadership. Keller finished with 46,991 votes, or 36%, while White followed with 40,783, or 31%, sending the race to a Dec. 9 runoff.
White faces both a mathematical and a financial disadvantage heading into the five-week runoff campaign. A GBAO poll of 400 likely voters Oct. 16-19 for Ascend ABQ PAC, a group backing Keller, showed Keller leading 45% to 38%, with 17% undecided and a 4.9% margin of error.
“Last night’s election was not for an open seat – it was about an incumbent mayor seeking an unprecedented 3rd consecutive term,” White said in an email to City Desk. “The number that defined the election is the fact that nearly 65% of voters cast their ballots seeking a change from the incumbent.”
Keller, the only publicly financed candidate, will get $377,973 in new funding, while Ascend ABQ PAC has $37,000 on hand. White is privately financed, and his allied PAC, Change ABQ, reported just $137 in the bank Monday.
Asked how he plans to overcome those odds and win over the 34% of voters who backed eliminated candidates, White said his campaign will stay focused on change.
White needs to gain more ground than Keller to win the runoff, making the 44,400 voters who chose eliminated candidates crucial to both campaigns.
Roughly 44,400 voters, or 34%, supported one of the five candidates eliminated Tuesday: Alex Uballez with 24,718 votes, Louie Sanchez with 8,551, Mayling Armijo with 7,532, Eddie Varela with 2,249 and Daniel Chavez with 1,354.
White said he plans to keep reaching out to “change-minded voters regardless of party” and invited them to join his campaign.
He pledged to serve only one term if elected and said he would appoint a bipartisan cabinet of Albuquerque residents to “tackle the crises of crime and homelessness that represent Mayor Keller’s legacy.”
Among those eliminated candidates, Uballez has already weighed in on the runoff. He urged supporters Tuesday night not to back White, calling him someone who “would roll over” for the Trump administration and referencing White’s “no confidence vote from his own rank and file” while serving as the city’s chief public safety director.
“At the end of the day, Tim Keller has had eight years and he’s only promising more of the same,” White said. “It’s time for change.”
The Dec. 9 runoff will decide Albuquerque’s next mayor. Early voting runs Dec. 1–6 at 16 sites, open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Darren White is a co-founder of City Desk ABQ, along with Publisher Pat Davis, but he has never held employment with City Desk or had any editorial influence, including with this story.