Local businesswoman Gina Montoya Ortega took her first step into the political arena running for Mayor, and came in with just %16 percent of the vote. She says she’s always wanted to run for local office, and is proud of the campaign she ran.
“I feel like I’ve never done this before,” Ortega said. “And I feel like I came in and I ran a good race, I fought a good fight, and like I said there is probably a few little things I could have done differently, but I don’t regret it.”
Ortega said one of the hardest things about running for mayor was balancing campaigning with her small- business.
“We are self-employed,” Ortega said. “And I had to be at work all the time, so I couldn’t be out and about all the time doing a lot of the stuff that I probably should have been doing. So, I think that was probably the most difficult part, was actually probably committing more time to my campaign then I probably should have.”
Ortega says lack of name recognition hurt her in this campaign.
“You know I probably should have done at least one mailer,” Ortega said. “And mail it to peoples homes with a picture of who I am, and what I’m about, and that might have made a difference, I don’t know.”
Ortega says campaigning showed her a lot of problems in the city.
“I’ve learned that I totally believe that this city is in worse shape then what we know,” Ortega said. “I’ve learned that there are a lot of people that know that and believe that, and you know I think if they would have known who I was maybe, and what I was about I think I would have had more support.”
Ortega says low voter turnout shows that people are sick of city government.
“Because obviously the other 45,000 people that didn’t get out to vote,” Ortega said. “They’ve lost hope, they’ve lost belief in the system, and those are the people I probably needed to reach, and say you know there is hope, give it one more chance, get out and vote.”
Ortega said just because she lost, doesn’t mean she’s done with local politics.
“I will stay involved because now I do know more of the stories,” Ortega said. “So, I might be that little thorn, you know. And who knows, I didn’t have that much time to take care of my campaign like I probably should have, so who knows how much time I’ll have. To say that I’m going to run again, I don’t know, only God knows, but this was something I was looking at even before I ran for Mayor, so maybe you never know."
