There is a saying that once is an anomaly, twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend. Tuesday night Grand Junction voters rejected a slate of self professed conservative candidates for City Council for the second election in a row. We’re not sure we can call this a trend yet, but we think it’s more than coincidence.

There was a lot going on in this election, so drawing broad conclusions is probably not wise. Still we think one City Council race in particular was interesting – the at-large contest between Scott Beilfuss and Diane Schwenke.

The unofficial tally released Wednesday morning had Beilfuss besting Schwenke by around 230 votes. We did not see that coming.

Both candidates worked hard and ran good campaigns. Both seemed to genuinely want to do what is best for our community. Neither had any disqualifying qualities in our eyes. Still the choice for voters was very clear.

The candidates are known commodities in the city. Schwenke is the former President and CEO of the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce and aligned herself with the other conservative candidates in the race. Beilfuss is a mainstay at City Council meetings and ran for House District 55 in 2020 as a Democrat, ultimately losing.

What does Beilfuss likely winning (there is still the ballot curing process to complete) this time tell us about the city? Is it solidly blue territory now? Should we steal the “People’s Republic” moniker from Boulder and slap it on Junction? We don’t think so.

Perhaps Grand Junction voters have drifted from staunchly conservative to moderately conservative, but we think this result is less about ideology and more a rejection of partisan politics butting into traditionally non-partisan elections.

These elections are nonpartisan for a reason. This forces voters to learn about the candidates and judge them on the issues, rather than on the letter after their name. That’s a good thing. We want voters making informed decisions.

The job of a City Council member also isn’t typically related to partisan politics. The issues before the city are hyper local and a partisan ideology doesn’t neatly fit over the wide range of issues they tackle. What does conservative or liberal ideology have to say about potholes?

There is of course a counterexample in the District 51 School Board, which elected a slate of candidates in 2021. It worked in that case, but what we’ve seen since then is that they didn’t just run as a slate, they’re governing as a slate. You aren’t electing candidates. You’re electing a bloc. That’s a turn off in a local election.

The way candidates should approach a nonpartisan race is to show themselves as an individual. You explain who you are, what your decision making process is and what you think about the issues facing the city today. That’s what voters here respond to.

Just look at Cody Kennedy as an example. Kennedy won his race by more than 6,000 votes. He’s a former Grand Junction police officer and a current business owner. He obviously appealed to a broad cross section of Grand Junction voters. He also wasn’t part of a slate of candidates.

Partisan politics has become toxic in this country. We don’t need or want that toxicity to be brought into our local elections. The people elected to these positions are making decisions about us and our neighbors. They should only be making decisions based on what’s best for the community.

This isn’t a judgment of any individual candidate. Elections are a lot of work and they all campaigned hard. However, when the next local election rolls around, we hope candidates will think twice about trying the slate approach again.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Editorial Board

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