Sioux Falls mayoral candidates make final campaign push

What began as a mayoral race with six candidates is now down to two; this Tuesday, one of them will be elected as the next mayor of Sioux Falls.

Polls are open from seven to seven Tuesday for the city's runoff election, ending what has been nine months of full-time campaigning for Paul TenHaken and Jolene Loetscher.

Monday was no different. TenHaken started his day at 5:30 a.m. meeting with voters outside Smithfield Foods then onto media interviews and lunch at the rotary club meeting in downtown Sioux Falls where mayor Huether spoke about his past eight years in office.

Jolene Loetscher started her day with media interviews and more door-to-door campaigning. She spent the afternoon with voters outside Smithfield Foods Monday afternoon, sharing her message with voters one last time and encouraging everyone to head to the polls Tuesday.

“Everything builds up to these last 24-48 hours where you've been telling your story, sharing your vision, hearing from others, and now that we're in these final hours, it's about reminding people that as they've heard that, they've got to act on that. It’s more than just a Facebook like or a Facebook comment, you've got to get out and vote,” Loetscher said.

“One of the challenges with the runoff is that we just had an election three weeks ago, so there's maybe a little election fatigue. It’s really important they get out one more time, because this is really the election that matters now, the previous one did, but now we're deciding who the next leader of our city is going to be,” TenHaken said.

Both candidates will be hosting watch parties as the results come in Tuesday night. TenHaken will be meeting at the District and Loetscher will be at Swamp Daddy's and the Source. Both candidates say they’ll be celebrating with the many volunteers who have helped their campaign over the past nine months.