Longtime Peoria City Council member Chuck Grayeb isn’t ready to give up on his third attempt to become the city’s mayor.
“I think we need to wait until all the ballots are tabulated, and that will be a few more days, and then we can go from there,” Grayeb said in an interview with WCBU on Wednesday, a day after preliminary primary election results showed him in third place behind at-large council member John Kelly.
“I think anything before that would be kind of premature, in terms of the second spot anyway. So, we’re in kind of a wait and see mode right now.”
Incumbent Mayor Rita Ali advanced to the April 1 general election with 51.7% of the unofficial primary vote in her first re-election bid. Kelly garnered 24.7% while Grayeb had 23.7%, a difference of only 127 votes.
“Obviously we would like to win, but we have to be realistic. But I do want to say we have to wait until the last vote is actually counted, especially with this small margin,” said Grayeb.
Outstanding provisional and mail-in ballots will add to the totals before the Peoria County Election Commission certifies the results on March 12.
Grayeb said conceding the second spot to Kelly at this point “would be a disservice to the voters.”
“We’ll see if we’re able to make up the difference, which would then alter the race significantly,” said the retired Peoria Public Schools administrator, who previously ran for the mayor’s office in 1993 and 1997.
“I think we had three good candidates, each representing his or her own philosophy, and we had nice debates,” he said. “I think the voters are split in their overarching philosophy, and that’s why we have elections. I mean, it’s the greatest country on the face of the earth, and we have to respect the wishes and the diversity of opinion with our voters.”
Grayeb said he did not carry any expectations about the outcome coming into Election Day.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that the people are mysterious,” he said. “I don’t trust national polling; I don’t trust local polling — we’ll know the result when all the votes are cast. So, I never try to get ahead of myself and predict anything.”
By opting to run for mayor, Grayeb did not seek re-election to the District 2 council seat he’s held since 2013 after previously serving three at-large terms. Estrella Diaz and Alex Carmona advanced in Tuesday’s primary to fill Grayeb’s upcoming vacancy.
Grayeb wouldn’t speculate on what his political future may be if he ultimately does not advance in the mayor’s race.
“It would be too early, because we have to find out what the actual ordinal position is for each of the three candidates,” said Grayeb, who has outdistanced Kelly in mail-in ballots by 332 votes so far.
“I do know we did very well with the mail-in ballots, not so well on the day of the election. If kind of the lopsided nature continues as we get those that are still yet to come in, we could do well. But we’ll wait and see.”
