INDIANAPOLIS — In his first interview since the May 2 primary election, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett told Fox 59 News he hopes to put an internal democrat divide between himself and State Representative Robin Shackleford behind and unite the party for his third term in office.

”We both agreed that upon her return we’d sit down to talk about how and what kind of role she could play in unifying the competition that she and I were engaged in,” said Hogsett, “and frankly we’ll do anything and everything we need to do to convince undecided voters or independent swing voters to vote for the ticket in the fall.”

The Marion County Election Board meets Monday to finalize the primary results.

”The turnout was kind of at a record number for a municipal primary election and I hope that continues into the fall,” said Hogsett, putting the best face on results that saw his top two opponents outpoll him by more than nine thousand votes.

Preliminary results indicate a total of 79,612 votes were cast during the primary.

Hogsett led all vote getters with 28,230 ballots, or 58%, versus Shackleford’s 18,358 votes, or nearly 38%, on the democrat side.

On the republican side, Jefferson Shreve scored 19,170 votes, or nearly 66% of all GOP ballots, pointing out to Fox 59 News that his percentage of party votes was greater than Hogsett’s despite the GOP’s smaller overall totals.

Added together, voters preferred Shackleford and Shreve over Hogsett, though the mayor’s raw vote total almost topped the total number of republican ballots cast.

In fundraising, Hogsett is also up against his most formidable challenger ever.

As of April 14, the mayor reported $4,131,568 on hand in his campaign fund.

Shreve, a millionaire businessman who has mostly self-funded his campaign, reported a total of $655,663 on hand with the anticipation that he intends to tap his own resources for even more money going into the fall campaign.

“I’m taking nothing for granted,” said Hogsett. “I’m running like I always do which is 20 points behind, whether that’s true or not, its anybody’s guess.”