Republican Joe Olt, a Cortez attorney with a practice specializing in civil law, unseated Mike Green, the incumbent district attorney in the 22nd Judicial District, with a decisive victory in Tuesday’s election.

Olt, 53, gained 62 percent of the vote in Montezuma County, with 5,566 votes to Green’s 3,374. He also had a wide margin in Dolores County, which is also part of the 22nd Judicial District. With two of Dolores County’s five precincts in, Olt was ahead 227 votes to 108.

"I’m up in the air," said a jubilant Olt Tuesday night. "This is great."

He said his family had given him a black ball cap that said "DA" on it, but he wasn’t quite ready to put it on.

Olt attributed his victory largely to "the hard work that the people that I have as my campaign staff did for me."

"It was absolutely unbelievable," he said. "They got the word out for me. They supported me in my walks through neighborhoods — I went to Dove Creek, Mancos, Rico, all over the district.

"I really wanted this job."

Olt had campaigned on a "get-tough" platform of demanding fewer or stricter plea bargains and increasing accountability for criminals.

He became the Republican party’s nominee after Tim Tuthill, a local attorney who had declared his candidacy early on, dropped out of the race.

"I want to take more cases to court," he said Tuesday. "It’s impossible to take every case to court — the court system could not possibly take that. But I’ll take as many cases as possible to court.

"I also want to get some teeth into the plea bargains."

He said he wants to make sure criminals are held accountable for their actions so they won’t become repeat offenders.

"The system is clogged with people that are there for their second, third, fourth time," Olt said. "I do believe people should be held responsible for their actions."

He also said he plans to have three full-time attorneys, counting himself, in the office rather than having some part-time deputy DAs, as Green now does.

Olt said the first thing he will do now is "take a big, deep breath and then wrap up some of the stuff in my practice." He will be turning his clients over to other attorneys, he said.