Today is May 17, 2023 and here is what you need to know:

Eighteen months ago Yemi Mobolade was a political newcomer who set out to become Colorado Springs’ next mayor and break the status quo. On Tuesday night, he was poised to do just that – and was also on his way to making history as the city’s first elected Black mayor.

Unofficial results released by the City Clerk’s Office at 9:40 p.m. show Mobolade had about 57.5% of the vote, ahead of his opponent Wayne Williams in the race, who had 42.5%.

Mobolade’s decisive victory represents a seismic political surprise in Colorado Springs, long known as a conservative stronghold. Though the city’s municipal elections are nonpartisan, Mobolade, who is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, will be the first mayor not affiliated with the Republican party since Colorado Springs started electing mayors 45 years ago. He has promised a more “inclusive, culturally rich city.”

“It’s a new day in our beloved city. Do you believe that?” Mobolade asked a crowd of about 900 who had gathered to cheer him on at a watch party at the COS City Hub on Tuesday night. “Because I do. … Colorado Springs will become an inclusive, culturally rich, economically prosperous, safe and vibrant city on a hill that shines brightly.”

That sound you heard Tuesday night in Colorado Springs was a seismic shift in the political foundation under Colorado’s second-largest city.

Yemi Mobolade, an unaffiliated, first-time candidate, didn’t just beat veteran Republican politician Wayne Williams by double digits in the city’s mayoral runoff – the Nigerian immigrant upended the board in a once reliably right-leaning city that has been moving toward the center by leaps and bounds in recent elections.

According to preliminary, unofficial results, Mobolade defeated Williams by about 15 percentage points, becoming the city’s first elected Black mayor and the first Colorado Springs mayor who isn’t a registered Republican in the more than four decades since the city began electing mayors directly in 1979.

“Yemi has tremendous crossover appeal,” Republican consultant Daniel Cole told The Gazette on Tuesday night.

Cole, who ran an independent group that supported Williams in the first round but sat out the runoff, said internal polling predicted Mobolade’s sweeping win.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has congratulated Yemi Mobolade on his victory in Tuesday’s runoff election for mayor of Colorado Springs.

“Congratulations to Mayor-elect Yemi Mobolade on his victory and I look forward to working with the Mayor-elect to help save people money in Colorado Springs, make Colorado one of the ten safest states, and move Colorado Springs forward,” Polis wrote in a statement.

Members of Colorado’s congressional delegation and the mayor of Colorado Springs said on Tuesday that they expect Space Command’s permanent location will be decided based on national security considerations, not abortion politics.

It’s the latest wrinkle in an argument that has been raging for more than two years, since former President Donald Trump announced in the waning days of his administration that the command’s headquarters would move from its temporary home in Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Ala.

At the urging of numerous Colorado officials, President Joe Biden announced plans soon after he took office to review the move. Despite the completion of multiple federal inquiries and near-constant rumors that a decision was imminent, no announcement has been made.

For a select group of attorneys who argued their cases before Colorado’s Court of Appeals on Tuesday, the experience was different in two key ways: First, they traded the ornate courtrooms of downtown Denver for the picturesque foothills 30 miles to the west.

Second, the most pointed questioning did not necessarily come from the court.

“You guys are often way tougher than the judges are,” Assistant Attorney General Jaycey DeHoyos told the students at Conifer High School.

As part of the judicial branch’s “Courts in the Community” initiative, a three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals traveled to Conifer to hear oral arguments in two real cases and field questions from students. The judges spent time explaining their role in the justice system, which is to correct errors and clarify the law for the trial courts.