Mitchell takes lead in early returns in mayoral runoff

 In a mayoral runoff election that showed a dramatic decrease in turnout from last month’s contest, incumbent Travis Mitchell has captured 52.64 percent of the vote in early returns.

Mitchell collected 784 votes in early voting to 709 for challenger Linda Tenorio and in the first election night voting, Mitchell received four votes to none for Tenorio from one precinct bringing the total to 788 for Mitchell and 709 for Tenorio.

The good news for Mitchell is that last month, Tenorio only received 41 more votes than Mitchell on election day and she will need to perform much better than that — with a lower turnout — to overcome that margin this time.

Only one-tenth of the voters who cast ballots early in November did so in the runoff.