Hopefully not.

With about 60 percent of the precincts counted Tuesday night, Democrat Peter Corroon led by about 4 percentage points but the race was too close to call. Exit polls showed Corroon and Ellis Ivory running neck and neck with unaffiliated challenger Merrill Cook trailing in single digits. Corroon, though, led in counted absentee ballots by nearly 7,000 votes.

So hold the balloons and confetti; the victory party will have to wait.

"Frankly, it's what I expected," Ivory said late Tuesday. "It was a dramatic race for a month, so it should be dramatic at the end."

This morning at 12:30, Corroon said he was going to bed, "and I've asked not to be awakened unless it's good news. But I feel good because as the numbers keep coming in, we're ahead."

Still, he said, "I'll be tossing and turning tonight for sure."

Corroon held a 1-point lead over Ivory in the Utah Colleges Exit Poll and the race was too close to call in Dan Jones' exit poll results.

Before May, this contest appeared a shoo-in for incumbent Nancy Workman, who had a bulging war chest and a record free of tax increases.

Then the contest, - expected to make few headlines, let alone garner any television time - hit a potholed road filled with unforeseen twists and turns

A scandal erupted over the use of county vehicles, toppling three high-ranking officials, two of whom faced criminal charges. In June, a criminal investigation surfaced about a so-called "ghost" county employee at the South Valley Boys and Girls Clubs, where Workman's daughter was a top financial officer.

Turns out, for about a year the county paid two successive bookkeepers to work at the club without following the proper procedures and a third employee was in line to get a county paycheck for nonprofit club work.

District Attorney David Yocom, a Democrat and staunch enemy of Workman, handed the case to an outside, bipartisan panel of county attorneys, which found "sufficient credible evidence" to warrant two felonies against the mayor. She was charged a week later and placed on paid leave. But Workman continued her drive for a second term.

Enter Ivory, Workman's honorary campaign finance co-chairman. On Oct. 5, Ivory determined that Workman could not win and jumped in the race as a write-in challenger. The same day, the Republican Party withdrew its support of Workman and backed Ivory. Then, after vehemently vowing to stay in the race, Workman later dropped out, releasing a doctor's note that the race was compromising her health.

Armed with that note, the Republicans attempted to replace Workman on the ballot with Ivory. The Democrats sued and a 3rd District judge ordered Ivory off the ballot. The next day, in a rare and speedy ruling, the Utah Supreme Court put him back on.

That decision dropped thousands of votes from straight-Republican Party voting into Ivory's column, giving him the straight-Republican Party votes he would have lost as a write-in candidate. About 50,000 votes cast straight-GOP votes in 2000.

Though she lost her party's official backing, Workman didn't shy away from the GOP's election night festivities. "This is an exciting night. This is what America is about. This is democracy at work." And she didn't lament that it wasn't her taking the stage to claim victory.

"I'm at a really good place now," Workman said.

In the Utah Colleges Exit Poll, more than 60 percent of voters said that Workman "broke the law," while 33.7 percent said she did something wrong but did not break the law. Workman denies any criminal wrongdoing and faces a Feb. 1 trial.

Voters didn't see her name on the ballot Tuesday; it was replaced with a sticker that said "candidate withdrawn." Voters were still split on the remaining three-main choices.

"The whole Ivory thing is arrogant," said Joseph Trugillo, who voted for Corroon at Salt Lake City's Rose Park Elementary School. "It's the Republican Party shoving it down your throat."

Corroon, he said, "seems decent. For some reason, I get a good feeling about him."

Quinn Frampton cast his ballot for Ivory at Monroe Elementary in West Valley City. "Although he jumped in late, he stayed positive," Frampton said. "I can't stand it when they turn negative."

Frampton said he leaned toward Corroon but switched to Ivory because Corroon's ads became negative as the campaigns wrapped up.

Shauna Sandberg, also voting at Monroe Elementary, voted for Corroon. "I've been very disturbed in the way Ellis Ivory ended up on the ballot," Sandberg said. "There are procedures in place." At Magna Elementary, Melissa Caldwell voted for Ivory.

Caldwell believed the Democrats tried to paint the entire GOP as dirty because of the scandals under Workman's administration.

"People made choices that were wrong. I don't think the Republican Party made those choices. I don't like how the Democratic Party portrayed things."

And, for Caldwell, it didn't matter if Ivory was on the ballot or not.

"Whether he was on the ballot or if he was a write in candidate, I was going to vote for him," Caldwell said.

While the mayor's seat once seemed overshadowed by higher offices, politicians, the press and the public paid close attention after the controversy erupted. The position, they realized, was powerful. The mayor appoints dozens of people, runs a budget of $750 million, controls popular facilities and programs and represents more residents than a congressional district.

University of Utah political scientist Tim Chambless says with Corroon as mayor, the Democrats would have a training ground - or a launching pad - for aspiring power brokers and policy-makers.

"It's the second or third most influential position in the state," Chambless said.

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Tribune reporters Pam Manson, Jacob Santini and Kathy Stephenson contributed to this report.