Conservatives lead in all 3 SLO County supervisor races. Will board shift further right?
Final election results are still far off, but if all of the current leaders end up victorious, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors will shift another step to the right with 4-1 conservative majority.
Republicans are leading all three races for the board, as of the latest returns from the end of Election Day at 11:15 p.m. Tuesday. And while the results are far from final, some things are clear:
- John Peschong will be re-elected to represent the North County. He has a commanding lead of 67% (8,702 votes) over Democratic challenger Stephanie Shakofsky with 33% (4,197 votes).
- Stacy Korsgaden has a chance to unseat incumbent Adam Hill in District 3, which includes San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach and Grover Beach. She has a slight lead of 51% (6,947 votes) over Hill’s 49% (6,643 votes). Notably, the unofficial count indicates nearly 1,000 voters in the district didn’t vote for either candidate.
- Debbie Arnold’s large lead is likely insurmountable for Democratic challenger Ellen Beraud in the race to represent District 5, which includes Atascadero, Santa Margarita and part of Templeton. The conservative incumbent leads with 57% (7,868 votes) to Beraud’s 43% (5,982 votes.)
As of 11:15 p.m. election night, 72,390 ballots had been processed, according to the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
On Wednesday, the Clerk-Recorder’s Office announced that 24,520 ballots remain to be counted countywide. Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong told The Tribune on Wednesday that the next release of results would come on Friday.
About 176,300 residents were registered to vote two weeks before Election Day, but that number doesn’t include late-registration voters.
These unofficial results mark the beginning of the end of a divisive and expensive election in San Luis Obispo County that led to $1.2 million in campaign contributions that funded some ugly tactics.
While the barrage of attack ads, nefarious accusations and shady robocalls ended on Election Day, final results of the election won’t be available for several days, if not weeks, due to the logistics involved in processing vote-by-mail ballots and ballots from same-day registrations.
Arnold leads Beraud in District 5 race
While early counts tend to lean conservative and incoming results will more likely favor liberals as vote-by-mail ballots are processed, it’s not looking good for Democrats in District 5.
“If half of the ballots are still being counted, Beraud would need something like a 14% advantage in outstanding ballots,” Cal Poly political science professor Michael Latner told The Tribune Wednesday. “In statewide partisan races, the average post-election night ‘blue shift’ that favors Democratic candidates in California is about 1.5%.”
Beraud and her campaign were still hopeful as they left an election night party at Wild Field’s Brew House in Atascadero on Tuesday.
“I’m assuming it’s going to be close, but I’m hoping to be victorious,” Beraud said Tuesday. “I think there’s a lot of vote-by-mail ballots. That’s what I’m counting on to make up the difference.”
Beraud’s campaign manager, James Sofranco, said many voters said they were waiting until Election Day to select a Democratic presidential nominee and turn in their mail-in ballots. But even if thousands of Democratic ballots are added to the district count, they won’t necessarily include a vote for Beraud.
“Looking just at changes in voter registration, we would have expected the outcome to be somewhat better for Beraud,” Latner said. “But a number of factors are at play, including possibly the undervotes, as Democratic ballots needed to be turned over to vote for Fifth District supervisor. That said, the negative attacks funded by outside groups supporting Arnold also appear to have been effective.”
An undervote is a ballot that doesn’t reflect a vote for either candidate in the district; the voter may have selected a presidential candidate, but didn’t vote in the local race.
In the leadup to Election Day, residents were bombarded with mailers and other negative attack ads. Arnold criticized Beraud for taking thousands of dollars from cannabis operators and investors.
A political action committee with unclear leadership spent nearly $100,000 to hammer Beraud on a City Council vote she made 13 years ago about Atascadero’s veterans memorial. San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow supported the effort and was listed as a co-chair on the committee, according to federal filings.
On Tuesday night, Arnold said via phone from county Republican Party headquarters that she’s relieved with her strong lead, but was “still on pins and needles.”
Still, “I feel comfortable,” she said. “It feels good to have a good number like that. I’m feeling a little bit relieved and looking forward to the final count.”
What’s at stake in Board of Supervisors race?
The final results of the three races will determine who controls the county board — and ultimately what policies will be implemented to address the major and growing problems of a lack of affordable housing and a growing number of residents living without permanent shelter.
At this point, it’s looking like the board will maintain or strengthen the conservative majority. That board would likely support policies to lower fees for developers and support increased oil development
Hill, one of two liberals on the current board is trailing slightly behind his opponent: Korsgaden, a Grover Beach insurance agent and political newcomer.
Korsgaden hit voters hard with attack mailers that alleged Adam Hill was for sale and repeated anonymous and unproven online comments that he was accused of being sexually inappropriate with students as a lecturer at Cal Poly.
A 4-year-old accusation that Hill sent insulting emails to radio host Dave Congalton was brought to the public’s attention within a month of Election Day.
And Hill was again the target of conservative activist Kevin P. Rice, a resident of Kern County who funded an offensive and strange robocall. Rice turned himself in to the District Attorney’s Office, which is considering whether to file criminal charges for violating campaign laws or regulations about robocalls.
Hill was not available for comment the night of the election and he has not returned requests for comment from The Tribune.
From an election night party in Grover Beach on Tuesday, Korsgaden said, “It’s been a pleasure to get to know and meet so many people in San Luis Obispo County. ... Right now, we’re celebrating the American process.”
The board has been run by a three-person conservative majority that includes Peschong, Arnold and Lynn Compton. Compton narrowly escaped losing her seat to Democratic newcomer Jimmy Paulding in 2018.
While San Luis Obispo County remains politically diverse, the number of registered Democrats exceeds the number of registered Republicans in the county as of this election cycle.
Here’s the party breakdown in the three contested districts:
- District 1: 28% Democrat, 44% Republican and 28% other.
- District 3: 41% Democrat, 30% Republican and 29% other.
- District 5: 34% Democrat, 37% Republican and 29% other.
If Peschong, Arnold and Korsgaden are elected to the board, Supervisor Bruce Gibson, who represents the North Coast, will be the lone liberal. He was re-elected in 2018.
Money from oil, cannabis plays role in SLO County election
Supervisor candidates collectively raked in more than $1.2 million in campaign contributions for this election, and voters were flooded with advertisements, including radio, TV, mailers and social media.
Money came from the oil industry, PG&E, cannabis operators, unions, political parties and rich donors from out of the area.
Shakofsky, a Democrat, proposed a list of good government reforms, including campaign finance limitations, saying that large industry donations “have created a climate that says our county government is for sale.”
She faced an uphill battle in challenging Peschong, a Republican who has strong support in the conservative North County.
Peschong wasn’t ready to claim victory when reached by phone at his home Tuesday night, only saying, “we’re trending in the right direction” and “I’m cautiously optimistic.”
He’s an experienced political operative who ran campaigns across the country including as a regional director in John McCain’s presidential bid. He had a clear campaign strategy to win against the political newcomer.
“We defined our opponent early. She was a fresh, new face in the community and we had to lay out who she was,” Peschong said, referencing a radio attack ad. He also raised far more money than his opponent did.
Peschong said his campaign walked close to 14,000 homes and “talked to all kinds of people,” which is where, he said, “the homeless issue kept coming up.”
“I’ve got my work cut out for me,” he said.
Pechong has said that, if elected, this would be his final term.
Why are election results taking so long?
Final results of local races will be a long time coming. It will take weeks for county election officials across the state to tally up all the votes because of new rules designed to make voting more accessible.
For the first time, Californians could register to vote and cast ballots at any polling place on or before Election Day.
Mail ballots will be counted as long as they were postmarked on Election Day and arrive at county elections offices by Friday. And while California’s primary was earlier than usual, many Democratic voters held onto their ballots while waiting for results in earlier presidential caucuses and primaries, further delaying the count.
Automatic voter registration at the state Department of Motor Vehicles has contributed to a huge rise in No Party Preference voters, all of whom needed to take an extra step if they wanted a partisan primary ballot. Since the launch of the Motor Voter program, No Party Preference voters have surpassed Republicans to become the second-largest voting bloc in the state.
“We’ll have a pretty good sense of what most of the election results are going to be,” said Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state. “But for final results, it’s going to take a few weeks.”
The first election returns are generally ballots received before Tuesday’s Election Day, which tend to skew toward whiter and more conservative voters.
In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders gained a few points on opponent Hillary Clinton as more results came in.
During the 2018 midterms, several House Democrats went on to win Republican-held seats after overtaking the leads GOP candidates held on election night.
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 2:51 PM.
