
Mayor Gondek hasn't decided if she'll run again. Others won't wait for her
CBC
The third-place finisher in Calgary's last mayoral election stood in front of a few dozen well-wishers and some media cameras this week, with the Saddledome and downtown as his scenic backdrop.
"Hi, my name's Jeff Davison," he said. "And I'm asking you to make me your next mayor of Calgary."
The former one-term councillor has 373 more days to keep repeating his name and asking that of Calgarians. The civic election isn't until Oct. 20, 2025.
Davison likely won't be the only one declaring his name and mayoral ambitions for a full year or more. Another serious contender has begun organizing and appears set to launch this month, and two current councillors and another past one are also actively considering bids.
All this maneuvering and open campaigning, and none of them know for sure whether current Mayor Jyoti Gondek will declare that she'll seek re-election.
And for a couple generations in Calgary, that's been the sort of declaration that other prominent figures with mayoral ambitions wait for.
It's not just that no sitting mayor has lost an election since 1980, when Ralph Klein swiped the job from Ross Alger. Every time the city's chief magistrate has sought a second term since then — from Klein to Naheed Nenshi last decade — they've won with at least 73 per cent of the vote.
But the public doesn't seem anywhere near as excited about four more years with Gondek.
After a long, controversy-laden summer of woes with water infrastructure and the Green Line project, a September poll indicated that only 18 per cent of Calgarians believe she should be re-elected, and surveys throughout her term have shown that her approval is under water.
So others feel comfortable dipping their toes or splashing right into the race to replace Mayor Gondek, whether or not she's running again.
In addition to Davison, Jeromy Farkas, the 2021 election's runner-up, has already said publicly that he's considering another bid. Like others, he senses that Calgarians hunger for change, not a second-term chance for the incumbent mayor (or many councillors, for that matter).
"Calgarians have been saying that city hall has been rudderless and that's from both progressive and conservative circles," Farkas told CBC News in an interview.
He's positioning himself as a more moderate candidate than the "cartoon caricature of a conservative" he says Calgarians saw last time.
"The city has grown up. I have grown up," he said.