If it had been a horse race, they would have had to go to the photo at the finish line to determine the results.

State Representative Monroe Nichols ended eked out a first place finish in the Tulsa mayoral race with 33.10% of the vote on Tuesday.

County Commissioner Karen Keith was right on his heels, at 32.62% - surprising many political pundits who thought she’d possibly even manage an outright win.

The pair will go on to a November 5th mayoral run off election, barring a possible challenge to the results from the third place finisher, businessman Brent VanNorman, who ended up with 31.84%.

The other four candidates between them managed about 1% - almost all for Casey Bradford.

Despite predictions of a healthy turnout, it appears that only about 56,585 voters cast ballots in the mayoral race in 2024, compared to 70,820 in the 2020 race.

For all the unofficial results from Tuesday’s election, visit the election board results page.

KRMG spoke with both candidates on Wednesday morning, you can listen to both interviews here:

Mayoral Candidate Karen Keith talks about upcoming runoff against Monroe Nichols

Mayoral Candidate Monroe Nichols talks about upcoming runoff against Monroe Nichols