Calgary will have a new mayor, with either Jeromy Farkas or Sonya Sharp knocking off incumbent Jyoti Gondek, according to the latest results.

For Farkas, it was a rematch of a 2021 campaign with Gondek that saw the latter candidate come out victorious.

Notably, it’s the first time an incumbent mayor has been beaten in Calgary since Ralph Klein took out Ross Alger back in 1980.

While it is still too close to call, Jeromy Farkas led Sharp by 585 votes with 380 of 380 polls reporting. Official results won’t come until later this week. A final, unofficial tally of votes is expected later Tuesday. Counting of the ballots at the Big Four counting centre ended early Tuesday at 1 a.m. and will resume later Tuesday morning. Polls were still being counted early into Tuesday morning.

It’s likely, with the vote being this close, that a recount will be requested. A recount can be requested by the second-place finisher, if “The difference between the first and second highest number of valid votes is within 0.5% of the total number of valid ballots marked at the election for that office,” reads the Elections Calgary website.

It would need to be filed within 72 hours of the official results being announced.

(Editor’s note: This story was updated at 7:05 a.m. Tuesday)

Farkas said that he was excited to see everything in his campaign come to fruition, and said, regardless of the result, there were nearly two million winners in Calgary who got to decide what they wanted from this election.

“We hear a lot about the candidates. We talk about the vision of the mayor, the various folks who are running, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to remember, it’s about Calgarians,” he said.

“It’s about the kind of future they want for a city.”

For Farkas, it’s literally been a long journey after Gondek’s 60,000-vote drubbing of him in 2021. He took some time away before walking the Pacific Crest Trail, then scaling dozens of area peaks – both in the name of charity, and perhaps some image rehabilitation.

Farkas came back with a renewed outlook having admitted he’d learned a lot about himself and accepted some of the mistakes he’d made as the Ward 11 city councillor before the 2021 election.

He said this election was very different from the 2021 campaign, largely because of the spectre of Covid hanging over the vote.

“It’s been amazing getting out to see people every single corner of the city, whether they’re small business owners like here at the DQ, or even just everyday folks hosting us in their backyard or living rooms,” Farkas said.

“It’s really meant a lot to me personally.”

Farkas said that if he’s successful in his bid to be mayor, his first order of business would be to meet with the incoming councillors and start building those bridges that will be important in the coming years.

“Regardless of who the next mayor is, they’re going to have to build a team. We have a historic turnover of city council, incredibly diverse talents, strengths around the table, but for any mayor to get anything done, whether it’s safety, whether it’s affordability, whether it’s repealing blanket rezoning, when there’s any of the other issues that were talked about in this campaign, no one’s going to be able to achieve that unless this the council and mayor can work together as a team,” he said.

“So, that’s job number one.”

Gondek thanks Calgarians

Former mayor Jyoti Gondek said that she was proud of the team that stood behind her and the vision she had for Calgary in this election.

“This didn’t end up the way that we had all hoped, but I’m standing here very proud of what we have built together, and I’m profoundly grateful for the privilege of having served this incredible city, the best city in the world,” she said.

“I am also proud to have run a campaign that was built on optimism and believing that politicians can still be grounded in goodness and solutions and respect for one another.”

Communities First mayoral candidate Sonya Sharp was still holding out hope when she spoke with the media at her headquarters just before midnight on Monday. She said that during her four years on council, she’d been on the right side of issues that mattered to Calgarians.

She said that Monday’s vote signalled that Calgarians wanted a change.

“I would say that I think Calgarians are reflecting back on the four years and knowing that it wasn’t probably the direction they wanted to go, moving forward and saying, you know, we gave her a chance, but this is a different election,” Sharp said.

“This is a different city, and it’s time to move forward.”

Calgary Party mayoral candidate Brian Thiessen said that despite losing the mayoral race, the entire party campaign was bigger than his end result.

“This campaign was never about me. It was about Calgary. It was about the Calgary we wanted to build together,” he said.

Farkas commended Gondek for her service to the city, telling a story about how when he was first thinking of running for councillor, she was the one who helped guide him on that journey, and then beyond.

“Despite the fact that she and I may have disagreed on certain issues, we may not have seen the politics the same way, and despite the fact that ultimately we both ran for mayor in the last election and I was ultimately unsuccessful, she continued to step up for me in a personal way,” he said, adding that she was one of the first people to donate to his non-profit fundraising campaigns, and welcome him home from his journeys.

“That is how I and I know how so many of us Calgarians will remember her service, leading us out of such an incredible time.