Incumbent Ray Masayko now has to overcome former supervisor Tom Tatro in the race for Carson City's mayor after Tuesday's primary whittled the four mayoral candidates to two.
In the only contest for a supervisor seat, Richard Staub and Verne Horton beat out fellow Ward 4 candidate Frank Sharp to advance to the Nov. 7 election.
Masayko finished with 3,827, or 41.8 percent of the vote, to Tatro's 3,498, or 38.2 percent. Because neither received more than 50 percent of the vote, they will face off in the general election.
Joined by several friends at his home Tuesday evening, Masayko said he plans to run for the job of mayor, not against Tatro.
"I'm the incumbent. I'd like to think I've done a good job," Masayko said. "I've been out there working hard for Carson City for three and a half years. I ran a low-key primary campaign, and I don't plan to go negative.
"I won't attack, but I plan to defend myself. In the 60-plus days until the general, I'll get geared up to make the run, and I'll continue to do my job every day and every night."
Tatro, who finished 329 votes behind Masayko, said "there's no real advantage to 300 votes."
"We both start right here," Tatro said. "Those numbers show 300 votes between me an and incumbent. Next time, people have a chance to vote, there will be 11,000 more people voting. I'm working on developing a plan for the next 63 days. There will be a lot of things you didn't see in the primary."
Staub, who advanced in the Ward 4 supervisor race by garnering more than 1,099 votes than Horton, said he plans on continuing to run an upbeat campaign into the general election.
"I've walked a lot of areas of Carson City. Maybe Carson City is getting to be a big area for that, but you've got to get the message out," Staub said. "I think Verne and I have some differences. He's run as the long-term, community service candidate. I ran as having a new vision.
"I may be on the rookie squad, but I don't think the voters looked at it that way tonight."
Horton said he plans to use the next week to reevaluate his strategy. He edged out Sharp to go on to the general election by 252 votes.
"We're going to continue to court voters face to face, talking to them about the issues," Horton said.
Sharp was unavailable for comment Tuesday evening.
Neil Weaver, who got 1,005 votes to finish third, said he expected to do better in the election. He also said voter apathy in the primary election "is enough to make you vomit."
Only 9,298 of Carson's 21,209 registered voters - 43 percent - voted in the primary. Election officials had predicted about 11,000 voters would show.
"That people would be that unconscious about their future, about their well-being is incredible," Weaver said. "The dynamics would have been totally different if people would have come out and vote. We had a nice, bright, fresh message, but you can't sell somebody something they don't want to buy. Congrats to the winners. It's business as usual in Carson City."
Mayoral candidates Tom Keeton said aside from voters picking the wrong candidate, he was happy with his experience running for mayor. Keeton received about 9 percent, 825, of the votes from primary voters.
"Obviously, I would have preferred to win," Keeton said. "I still have a few things I'm going to follow up on. I'm going to make a big thing out of the affiliation with the hospital and will continue to pound the bypass."
