We were supposedly past avalanche season, but a big one just landed on the GOP establishment in Colorado Springs.

Let’s face it: anyone who would have said six months ago that a politically unaffiliated, restaurateur, pastor and father of young kids who emigrated here from Nigeria would become the first Black mayor of Colorado Springs in his first-ever run for public office would have gotten one response:

Right, chief.

But this is why we have elections.

Yemi Mobolade, who is all the above and more, rolled into the mayor’s office with a double-digit win over a very well-liked, deeply experienced establishment candidate. He may be the most interesting person in Colorado politics for months to come.

The questions politicos are pondering this week are really two: how he racked up a 15-point win over Wayne Williams, a respected and reliable vote-getter in Colorado Springs, and how he bested an aggressive ad campaign painting him as a a risky, liberal nut job in conservative Colorado Springs.

I spoke to Mobolade the day after his win and asked him.

“I wanted to connect to real people all over the city, not just the usual political people, so that we could build a movement that transcends party,” he said. “I went and talked to everyday residents who told me they had never had a candidate talk to them and then they felt like they had somebody running who believed in them and their future.”

Mobolade says he thinks one reason he connected with Springs voters is that he’s a dad of young kids, and he went out of his way to talk to families – and get their kids excited about the race. That’s a great secret sauce.

“People are so used to older guys running that it was different to have a dad of little kids running,” he said.

He also said he was surprised at attempts by his opponents to paint him as liberal whack-job.

“We were going to respond but I decided we would stay with our plan and my determination to run a campaign of hope and deep optimism, combined with a determination to get stuff done for the city,” he said.

One of the people who has been talking up Mobolade for more than a year is my friend Josh Green, former chief of staff to former Colorado U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton and a guy who knows something about the establishment getting electoral surprises. (Tipton, who was a very effective congressman, was unexpectedly ousted in a primary by insurgent candidate Lauren Boebert).

“There was a group of people in the Springs who thought they would decide who would be mayor, but they forgot to check with the voters,” he told me.  “So Yemi went and talked to everybody else and built a big coalition of businesses, faith groups, evangelicals,  nonprofits, and families.”

Green senses that there was an appetite for a more nonpartisan candidate.

“This is a nonpartisan election and Yemi was the only nonpartisan candidate,” he said with a chuckle about the unaffiliated mayor-elect.

Interestingly, Green shared that Mobolade’s life story as a Nigerian immigrant who came to the U.S., planted a church, served the community and worked as a business advocate made him a true political outsider.

“When you come from outside the country, our traditional two-party system where you have to fit in one or the other of the parties doesn’t fit him,” Green said. “I think a lot of people who have been here their whole lives see politics that way more and more.”

Whatever type of Mayor Yemi Mobolade becomes – and I hope he is a smashing success – the fact is that the GOP establishment must, once again, take a gut check, because it got a gut punch in the Springs.

Yes, the infectiously optimistic Mobolade whose campaign knocked on 40,000 doors surely earned his big win.  But he was also aided by a GOP that still faces a broken brand and a lingering lack of confidence from and connection with average voters.

It’s been said over and over for years now, but it’s hard to win elections, even in the friendliest confines amid a sense among average voters that our party is wacky, weary and just plain out of touch. 

Colorado needs principled, optimistic conservatives in office at every level.   Time to retire the “next man up” candidate turnstile and peek at the Yemi Mobolade playbook that scored big in a conservative bastion.

Or we’re going to keep getting buried in electoral avalanches.

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.