Cox beats Busic
Democrat Rebecca Busic, who said she would be proud to lose over her support for the Valley Range solar project, trailed Republican Rodney Cox 55 percent to 45 percent in Montezuma County's first count of unofficial results.
Republican Rodney Cox is projected to win the District 1 seat on the Montezuma County Board of County Commissioners, defeating Democrat Rebecca Busic, who made her support for the proposed Valley Range Energy Park a centerpiece of her campaign’s final weeks.
In the county’s first count of unofficial results, posted at 7:28 p.m. Tuesday, Cox had 5,264 votes, or 55.4 percent, to Busic’s 4,236, or 44.6 percent, with 9,675 ballots counted. The Cortez Current projected Cox the winner at 8:25 p.m. With roughly 3,000 to 4,000 ballots likely still to be counted, Busic would have needed about two-thirds of them to catch up. The results are unofficial until the county certifies them later this month. Live results are here.
Cox will take the seat held by Commissioner Jim Candelaria, who is leaving because of term limits, and keeps the three-member board all Republican. No Democrat has won a seat on the board since 2000.
“Proud to do it”
Busic declared her support for the solar and battery project in an Oct. 16 post on her campaign Facebook page, and defended it against neighbors’ safety concerns in the last weeks of the race. She ended the post with a line about her young son:
“If I lose this race because I am supporting a more habitable future for him and every other child on this planet, by God I will be proud to do it.”
Cox said at a September candidate forum that he was against the project, then told the Cortez Current in October that he would not take a position until he had seen the application.
1,267 signatures
Neighbors of the site organized as NoValleyRange and asked their supporters to vote, calling the project “a local political lightning rod” on their website. Their petition against the project had 1,267 signatures as of Monday, according to a Facebook post that afternoon by the Dotty Wampus Magical Chocolate Factory, whose owners lead the group: “Thank you to all 1,267 petition signers!” The petition is a form on the group’s website, which says the signatures will be shared with county officials. The Cortez Current has not seen them and could not confirm the count.
How the vote broke
Busic ran almost exactly even with the rest of her party on Montezuma County ballots. In the first count, Attorney General Jena Griswold had 44.7 percent of the county’s vote, State Board of Education candidate Barb Clementi 44.9 percent and Sen. John Hickenlooper 44.9 percent. A Cortez Current analysis before the polls closed, based on party registration, ballot returns and past results, projected Cox winning about 55 percent to 45 percent.
What’s next
The project’s planning hearing is expected in December and a commissioners’ hearing next year, though the county has not confirmed those dates. Cox takes office in January. See all of the Cortez Current’s Valley Range coverage.
Sources: Colorado Secretary of State election night reporting, Montezuma County results, Nov. 3, 2026 · Rebecca Busic for Montezuma County Commissioner, Facebook statement, Oct. 16, 2026 · NoValleyRange, Next Steps page · Dotty Wampus Magical Chocolate Factory, Facebook post, Nov. 2 · Cortez Current, Oct. 23 · Cortez Current, Nov. 3