| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from Ella Creamer, Jesse Naranjo, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
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POLITICO illustration/Photo courtesy of Yemi Mobolade's campaign | What up, Recast family! The House is set to take up legislation on the debt ceiling compromise later today and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signals he’s readying a presidential launch in the coming days. First, we focus on the barrier-breaking mayor-elect of Colorado’s second largest city. Yemi Mobolade considers himself a futurist, but even he couldn't predict the history he made this month when voters of Colorado Springs made him the city’s first elected Black mayor. It’s just one of many firsts he’ll bring with him when he’s sworn in on June 6. The Nigerian-born Mobolade is also the city’s first immigrant mayor, as well as the first non-Republican to hold the office in nearly half a century. (In 1997, Leon Young, who was Black, served as interim mayor.) During his acceptance speech, he vowed to usher in an era where his city “will become an inclusive, culturally rich, economically prosperous, safe and vibrant city." Mobolade says his May 16 runoff victory was buoyed by grassroots support; voters were eager to bring about change in the city. On the campaign trail, he championed public safety and talked about how he would leverage his business ties to help lift the city’s economy. He also leaned into his evangelical faith, highlighting that he founded a church in the city and served as minister of city outreach and engagement for another. It worked. As a first-time candidate, he soundly defeated Wayne Williams, a former Republican Colorado secretary of state and current member of the Colorado Springs City Council who outraised and outspent him.
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Mobolade, 44, is a restaurateur who opened two popular restaurants around the city who has previously served as small business development administrator for the city. He moved to the U.S. as a teenager, spending his first years in Indiana before moving to Colorado and settling in Colorado Springs. His adopted city, he does not hesitate to remind me, was the inspiration behind the lyrics for “America the Beautiful.”
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| We spoke on Friday, just hours after his runoff election results were certified. We discussed how he plans to make good on his acceptance speech pledge, whether his immigrant experiences give him a unique perspective on the American Dream and governing — and what he wants his constituents to call him. Spoiler Alert: He’s partial to “Mayor Yemi.” ◆◆◆ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: We are speaking on a day that your election results are officially official — they were certified today. Has that feeling sunk in yet, that you’ve defied the odds and made history? MOBOLADE: It’s an exclamation mark, is what it is. It's sunk in because I'm doing the job. I mean swearing in is on June 6, but because I'm a futurist, I've already started meeting with community leaders. I had my first ribbon cutting [on Thursday]. … I am working with the current mayor and the city team on the transition. So that side has sunk in because that's the part of it — I want to get shit done. I love this city. I want to move us forward. The part that hasn’t sunk in is I just made history. Honestly, I look at myself as an everyday person — I’m an everyday Yemi. Opportunities like this don't always come to people like me. I think I need to sit in that for a little bit longer. I'm not the type of person who is drawn to power … so it's weird in all the right ways. THE RECAST: Well, just some housekeeping here, but have you figured out what you want to be called? You said yourself you are an “everyday Yemi.” Are you “Mayor Yemi” or have you thought about how you want to be addressed? MOBOLADE: Apparently that's like a thing, because the number of people who have asked me that is … like why is that a thing? Can I just go by Yemi? But a number of people have pushed back like, “No, we gotta call you mayor something.” I actually also thought about “Mayor Mobo” because that’s what my wife calls [me], “Mobo” as a nickname and that was actually my brother's nickname in college, but we’re just going to stick with “Mayor Yemi.”
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Colorado Springs Mayor-elect Yemi Mobolade prepares to give a speech at an election watch party May 16. | Christian Murdock/The Gazette via AP | THE RECAST: Your win has been described as a “seismic shift” in the politics of Colorado Springs. Obviously, you were aware that you were up against 45 years of Republican mayoral control. But the fact that you're not only just the first elected Black mayor, the first immigrant, but also, this disrupter of sorts, disrupter of the status quo. Did any of this enter your mind when you first sought the job? MOBOLADE: Absolutely. I've always termed myself a peaceful warrior. When you look at my story, as an immigrant — look at my siblings and I — my siblings all have traditional careers, and then move up the ladder. But I'm driven by impact. Impact is the name of the game. Everything I've done, every vocational decision I've made in the city has always been to make people's lives better, because I'm driven by impact. I'm inspired by the stories of the reformers before us, including leaders like Dr. [Martin Luther] King and Abraham Lincoln. And I am just a natural disrupter but I do it in a way that I'm not an activist but I am a disrupter and I do it in a way that is winsome, that brings people together, that acts as a change agent, but in a way that moves moves us forward and uniting people in the process. I know we live in an era of disruption and canceling culture. Those are not what inspire me. What inspires me is a better America, a better tomorrow. I am an idealist. I believe that we can unite around a common purpose of city greatness and citizen greatness.
|  | THE RECAST: What did you see that was not operating very well in Colorado Springs? In your acceptance speech you talked about how “Colorado Springs will become an inclusive, culturally rich, economically prosperous, safe and vibrant city.” So it sounds like there was a laundry list of things you saw that were needed, but not being addressed under previous administrations. MOBOLADE: Crime is one of them, homicide, we have a shortage of law enforcement officers, about 70 to be exact. And we need to do a better job at our recruitment practices, but we also need to close the back door to ensure that we're not losing law enforcement officers. It’s harder to do the job today. For many of our young people, nobody wants to sign up for that job. I am in a really unique position as one who wants to humanize politics. By so doing, I get to humanize the badge and the men and women who are working to keep our community safe. And to that — elevate the role of police in our community — at the same time, humanize the work that we have to do with restoring trust between law enforcement in pockets of my community, the Black and brown community, that still has distrust with law enforcement. It's a different kind of leader and leadership strength that steps into that reality. So that example I gave, it's in crime, but it's also in tackling homelessness. It's also in tackling our affordability crisis. It's also tackling our aging infrastructure. And so being [a leader] who can see the big picture, humanize a process and pursue the quality of life for all residents.
|  Courtesy of Yemi Mobolade's campaign | THE RECAST: How big of an issue is race relations there? Colorado Springs is roughly 67 percent white, another 18 percent Latino, and the Black population is around 6 percent, maybe a little less. Is there concern or questions about equity and how equitably the city resources are being spread about the city? MOBOLADE: There's concern in every city. Every city has their own story. The work we're doing also looks different as we even bring the faith community together to help with the race issues. I’ll say my city is not as intense as other cities, but we've had our own story of an officer-involved shooting of a young Black kid. And by nature, that type of incident, of course, it stirs up a lot. So those to me are opportunities I see as a leader, serving as a bridge between the 820 law enforcement officers that are working for me and supporting [the community]. And at the same time, serving as a bridge and ensuring that we are making law enforcement more accessible, more friendly to the Black and brown communities. THE RECAST: People are celebrating the fact that a Nigerian-born man is taking over and leading Colorado Springs. But this idea you talked about — not coming to this job as an activist, coming to it out of love of living the American Dream. Do you feel this perspective may be lost on some American-born folks, maybe they take this perspective for granted? MOBOLADE: First of all, we're a nation of immigrants. That's the foundation of our country. Sometimes it takes a new American to remind us of who we are.
|  Courtesy of Yemi Mobolade's campaign | I said new American; I'm actually more American than I am anything else. I've lived in this country for 27 years, though I've only been a citizen for almost six. But it takes somebody with that outside perspective to remind us who we are. And this is why I won this election. And this is why I was able to build a broad coalition of conservatives, progressives and independents together. Potholes don’t respect whether you have an R or D by your name, everyone is dealing with them. And I think people are so accustomed to a campaign of “are you an R or a D?” and then this is who’s in or out. Ronald Reagan, when he first ran for governor of California, when he was criticized for not having any political experience, he talked about being able to approach all the issues with fresh eyes. It takes somebody like me coming to politics with fresh eyes, with optimism, who hasn't been tainted with the blood of the political baggage, and to say: “No, this is who we are, this is what we can be. And this is how we can solve all these problems. And by the way, your voice is welcome at the table, you don't have to be part of the elite.” I spent the campaign quoting presidents and forefathers and I am just here to remind us about the best of who we are as Americans, when we look at the flag, and we see that red, white and blue encompasses all of us. I won because there is a deep hunger for more than we are getting right now. There's a tiredness with politics. One of the reasons I ran is because they say trust in political leadership is [near] all-time historic lows right now. Sometimes it just takes somebody to say: “Okay, I see what's going on. Here's what we can do.” ◆◆◆ As we alluded to in our opening, there's a big vote in the House today on the debt limit showdown. Some hard-line House Republicans floated threats this vote will cost House Speaker Kevin McCarthy his gavel. Keep up today at POLITICO.com. Here are other stories you should check out. Ellison Still Searching For Answers — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office led the prosecution of the former officer who killed George Floyd, is still on a mission to find out how policing reached this crisis point. POLITICO’s Shia Kapos has more. Fake AOC Twitter Account? — POLITICO’s Kelly Garrity on the Twitter handle impersonating the New York congresswoman causing a ruckus in Washington…and the Twitterverse. Black Women and the Senate — With upcoming Senate vacancies in California, Delaware and Maryland in 2024, many advocates — and candidates themselves — are hoping that these states can send a trio of Black women to serve in the upper chamber simultaneously. POLITICO’s Ally Mutnick breaks it all down.
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