With the election just days away, candidates for La Plata County commissioner are throwing themselves at their campaigns in a last-ditch effort to ensure their base votes. Nobody knows which of the three candidates running for District 1 will prevail on Election Day – least of all the candidates themselves

“It’s going to be a great reveal,” said independent candidate Jack Turner.

Turner could be on the cusp of victory – he came within 166 votes of winning the District 2 seat on the Board of County Commissioners two years ago. The candidate has pitched himself to voters as a true independent and says that his opponents have each tried to cast him as a closeted member of one party or another.

Since his narrow loss in 2020, the total number of active registered voters in the county has remained relatively steady. But the Republican and the Democratic parties have suffered declining membership – 11.7% and 18.5% respectively – while the number of unaffiliated voters increased by 19.9%.

Still, Turner has bristled at attempts to elucidate where he stands on issues such as the 3rd Congressional District race between alt-right incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert and Democratic challenger Adam Frisch.

Although Republicans garnered significantly more votes from unaffiliated voters in the primaries, there’s no guarantee that those voters will stick with the GOP when there’s an independent candidate on the ballot.

“You never know until the end,” said Democratic incumbent Clyde Church. “I suspect that the vote being split three ways, there will be a lot of independents crossing in both directions. ... The wild card here is I don’t know how the national scene is going to affect the candidates for county commissioner vote. It may be major, it may be minor – I don’t know.”

Republican candidate Brad Blake has spent a significant amount of money – $25,225 in the last two weeks of October – on advertising as he tries to win over voters who elected him county commissioner in 2014 but then gave him the boot in 2018.

“It’ll be very, very tough to get elected,” he said. “It’s not easy in this three-way race. I’m not quite sure what it’ll bring.”

Turner has also spent a pretty penny on his own advertising. His campaign spent $8,332 in the finals two weeks of October, which Turner has used primarily for printed ads and mailers. While Blake out-fundraised his opponents between August and the mid-October filing deadline, Turner has brought in sizable donations in the final weeks of the campaign.

Turner has received $1,000 from a leading Democratic political strategist Michael Stratton, as well as a total of $7,000 from the owners of Durango Hot Springs and the owner of the Glacier Development.

“What Durango Hot Springs got put through by our planning department was atrocious, in my opinion,” Turner said when asked about the donations. “Here’s a group of people that came in and put millions of dollars into making this community better, as far as I’m concerned, and they were just hassled every single step of the way – unnecessarily so.”

Turner maintains that the donations would not affect his performance on the dais.

“One thing I can assure you is I’ve told every single person who’s donated to me is, ‘The only thing owe you is gratitude and to be a fair commissioner,’” he said.

Although Church has raised and spent far less than his opponents – about $850 raised and spent in the final half of October – he said he spends 40 hours to 45 hours per week on the campaign trail in addition to serving full time as a commissioner.

Although the race is close, the candidates have remained focused on their own strengths rather than their opponents’ weaknesses.

“I didn’t run to run against anybody, I just ran to be engaged and help the community, and that makes winning or losing a little better,” Blake said. “I didn’t run to run against Jack or run against Clyde – those guys are both fine guys, I just feel like it’s something I can do for the community.”

The myriad issues at stake in these midterms, from state ballot questions to a fiery race for a Colorado Senate seat, are all likely to drive high voter turnout. But the commissioner candidates are unsure how that could affect their chances.

“The thing that would be most damaging to an independent candidate would be that only the party loyalists turn out,” Turner said, expressing optimism that high voter turnout may work in his favor.

rschafir@durangoherald.com