Election update: Compton makes a big comeback in District 4 race — but is it too late?
The race for San Luis Obispo County District 4 supervisor suddenly narrowed after a ballot-count update on Tuesday — but it’s very likely too little, too late to change the projected result.
Incumbent Lynn Compton took a big chunk out of Jimmy Paulding’s lead in the latest release, reducing his advantage by 848 votes, or more than half.
However, he’s still ahead by 732, meaning that, despite Compton’s late surge, she’s almost sure to come up short.
That’s because the Clerk-Recorder’s Office says it has only about 2,845 ballots left to tally countywide, meaning Compton may not even have enough ballots left in her district even if she got every one.
Elsewhere, the District 2 race moved further away from a decisive result for incumbent Bruce Gibson, who’s all but assured of going into a November runoff.
His lead dropped to 47.8% of the vote, well below that 50% threshold that would send him and another candidate to a showdown in the general election.
In all, the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office counted 14,812 ballots on Tuesday, bringing the total counted so far to 85,493. They will resume counting on Friday.
Bruce Gibson loses more of his lead in District 2
The latest update mans the District 2 race is poised to pit Gibson against his closest challenger, Bruce Jones.
Gibson has seen his election night lead erode in each of the last four vote updates.
On Tuesday, he slipped below 50% by another 507 votes, leaving him 714 votes off the number he’d need to win outright.
Jones now stands at 18.8% of the vote, positioning him as the likely candidate to challenge Gibson in the runoff.
Geoff Auslen continues to follow in third with 17.3% of the vote, while John Whitworth is in fourth place at 15.9%.
Jones now holds a comfortable lead over Auslen and has steadily expanded that advantage from a dead heat on election night (Jones held a mere two-vote lead at that time) to a 256-vote edge now.
In District 2, 17,640 ballots have been counted so far, bringing turnout there to 47.9%.
Dawn Ortiz-Legg stays on path to victory in District 3
With Tuesday’s results, Dawn Ortiz-Legg only padded her victory further, adding another 267 votes to her lead.
She now holds 62.8% of the vote. Stacy Korsgaden follows with 34%, and Arnold Ruiz is in third at 3.2%. In raw numbers, Ortiz-Legg now leads Korsgaden by 5,050 votes.
In District 3, 18,648 ballots have been counted so far — bringing voter turnout to 48.4%.
Lynn Compton cuts Paulding’s lead by more than half in District 4
While Compton has made the District 4 race more interesting with each ensuing vote update, it appears she’s just about out of runway in her comeback attempt.
Her showing on Tuesday was her best yet, cutting Paulding’s advantage from from 1,580 to 732.
Percentagewise, she has turned what was a dominating Paulding 16-point lead into a much more competitive race at 51.8% to 48.2%. That’s now a margin of 3.6 percentage points.
District 4 has the highest voter turnout in the county at 51.9%. So far, 20,248 ballots have been counted.
What about the other SLO County races?
Incumbent Elaina Cano won the race for county clerk-recorder with about 62% of the vote. James Baugh and Stew Jenkins follow with 22.2% and 15.9% of the vote, respectively.
The race for Office 12 County judgeship hasn’t budged. As of Tuesday, Mike Frye’s victory was secure by a large margin, 66.8% of the vote to Paul Phillips’ 33.2%.
In Morro Bay, Jennifer Ford remains poised to win a partial term on the City Council with 57.7% of the vote. James Costanzo followed with 42.4%.
The Oceano fire tax, which needs a two-thirds vote to pass, is on its way to failure. On Tuesday, 58.2% of voters had supported the measure, and 41.8% were against it.
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