Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Who will run for Mayor of Mesa?

Mayor Scott Smith's announcement that he will resign later this year to run for Governor of Arizona has set things in motion for another interesting mayor's race here in Mesa.  Vice Mayor Alex Finter will become mayor pro tem upon Smith's resignation, but he has indicated that he will not run for Mayor in the special election.

That means the race to replace Scott Smith is wide open.  Two early contenders appear to be former Vice Mayor John Giles and current District 5 Councilmember Scott Somers.

Giles wasted no time announcing that he's in the race.  He has earned the endorsement of the other five current councilmembers including Finter, Glover, Richins, Luna, and Kavanaugh.  He also announced a broad list of political supporters who were part of the Pearce Recall in 2011.

After getting skipped over by his colleagues, Somers has said that he is considering the race, but is going to focus on his councilmember duties for now.  He is probably testing the waters to see if there are other out there that would support him.

The bigger question is:  will anyone else run?  Could Claudia Walters or Rex Griswold consider a comeback?  Is there a conservative out there pondering a run?  Could someone new arrive to surprise everyone?