Who will win District 2 SLO County supervisor race? Here’s what 4 political observers think
More than a week and two vote count updates after Election Day, and the contest for San Luis Obispo County’s District 2 seat remains too close to call.
As of Wednesday’s ballot count, incumbent Supervisor Bruce Gibson led with 9,769 votes, or 52.1%, while challenger Bruce Jones followed with 8,988 votes, or 47.9%.
Countywide, a total of 91,696 ballots have been tallied so far, leaving about 27,940 remaining to be counted, the Clerk-Recorder’s Office said in its unprocessed ballot report posted Wednesday.
That means about a quarter of the total votes submitted remain to be tallied, still enough to chip away at Gibson’s current 781-vote lead, which has grown and shrunk with the two count updates.
For that to happen, however, Jones would have to grab more of the remaining share than he has up to this point.
His best performance was in the last drop, when he took 52.5% of the 4,508 ballots added Wednesday.
In that count, District 2 made up about 23% of the 20,000 reported that day. If it makes up a similar share of the remaining ballots countywide, that would leave about 6,400 to decide the race.
To overcome Gibson’s lead, Jones would need to get upwards of 56% of the remaining ballots.
It’s still doable, but the more votes that come off the table, the tighter the margin gets.
So who will win the battle of the Bruces?
The SLO County Republican Party is confident Jones can defeat Gibson in future vote counts, but other political analysts said they think Gibson ran a stronger campaign and are skeptical of Jones’ ability to recover.
Here’s what four SLO County political observers are taking away from the ballot count so far.
Will Gibson keep his lead in the District 2 race?
SLO County Republican Party official Erik Gorham said he expected Gibson to lead the early ballot counts, then surrender his lead to Jones by the end of counting.
During the June primary, Gibson ended the Election Night count with a significant lead, but as more ballots were tallied, he slipped below 50% as the three Republican challengers gained votes. Instead of winning outright in the primary, Gibson was forced to face Jones in a general election runoff.
Gorham anticipates a similar pattern during this election, one in which Gibson loses his early lead and Jones picks up enough ballots to win.
“It’s going to be a close race,” Gorham said. “We’re not locked into a victory, but I think we’re still feeling good.”
As of the Friday ballot count, Gibson gave up 228 points of his Friday lead. Still, Gibson was 781 votes ahead of Jones, more significant than his election night lead of 653 votes.
District 2 is home to more conservatives, with 14,586 registered Republicans and 13,162 registered Democrats.
According to the numbers, Jones should have enough of an advantage to win handily in District 2, but it’s not shaking out that way, according to Michael Erin Woody, a civil engineer who ran as a Republican for Congress in 2018.
“This is going to be a horse race until the last vote is counted,” Woody said. “Jones is clearly in striking distance of winning this, but in reality, the District 2 seats should have been an easy pickup for the Republican Party this cycle.”
That, Woody believes, is because the SLO County Republican Party has a “branding problem”: its alignment with former President Donald Trump.
“The Trump brand is energizing his base, but it’s lacking appeal to the ever-important swing voters that actually decide the elections here in SLO County,” Woody said. “The Republican Party has yet to pick up on that.”
Jones never said he supports Trump, but he never denied it either — likely because he didn’t want to alienate conservative voters, Woody said. And campaigning at the Mid-State Fair over the summer, he appeared beside a cardboard cutout of the divisive former president.
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According to Woody, Gibson used Jones’ perceived affiliation with Trump to his advantage in his campaign, distributing advertisements that accused Jones of supporting Trump.
“He’s a smart, savvy guy when it comes to politics,” Woody said of Gibson. “He understood that wrapping Jones around the Trump brand would really be off-putting to the voters that decide the election.”
Gorham said that Jones is not a Trump supporter, but he acknowledged that the retired orthopedic surgeon didn’t “denounce” the former president either. Still, Gorham said it was misleading of Gibson to illustrate Jones as a “MAGA guy.” He also argued that it doesn’t matter if the party supports Trump — Jones still has the independence to oppose Trump.
“The SLO County Republican Party and the Jones campaign are two totally different entities,” Gorham said.
Furthermore, Gorham said that Trump and national politics are separate from the Board of Supervisors, which makes decisions about land use, water policy and community services.
“I’ve never quite been sure what Trump has to do with the Board of Supervisors,” Gorham said. “You’re about 16 layers of government away, at least, and they have nothing to do with each other.”
Gorham said that local voters focus less on political party when voting for a supervisor, and instead are more likely to vote for the candidate that they’ve met in person at local events or during canvassing.
This is an area where political science professor Michael Latner thought Gibson excelled over Jones — a potential explanation for Gibson’s lead, he said.
Latner said Gibson did a better job than Jones at introducing himself to all voters, regardless of party, by visiting community events such as the Atascadero farmers market each week.
“He talked to a lot of not just Democrats, but Republicans and people registered with no party,” Latner said. “That’s what it’s going take in a close district like that.”
Jones, however, spent more time with Republican voters and failed to achieve “the same level of public presence” as Gibson, Latner said.
Barry Price, the SLO County Democratic Party Central Committee spokesperson, said Gibson’s campaign focused on policy rather than partisanship, which may have attracted more swing voters.
“I know they worked really hard to talk to as many voters as they could, and to make it clear that Supervisor Gibson was going to represent the entire district regardless of party preference or ideology,” Price said.
Gorham disagreed with those criticisms of the Jones campaign.
He said that Jones knocked on doors all across the city of Atascadero, talking with voters about what types of policy they care about. Jones also attended public events every week — where he often crossed paths with Gibson, Gorham said.
District 2 race will decide balance of power on the Board of Supervisors
For more than a decade, the Board of Supervisors has had a conservative majority — with three conservative supervisors and two liberal supervisors. That could soon change.
During the June primary, liberal candidates Dawn Ortiz-Legg and Jimmy Paulding won the District 3 and 4 seats, respectively. Meanwhile, conservative supervisors John Peschong and Debbie Arnold represent Districts 1 and 5.
If District 2 voters select Jones, they’ll reinforce the board majority, but if they select Gibson, the board will have a new liberal majority — deciding the board’s balance of power.
“This race will definitely set the direction for the next few years for the county Board of Supervisors,” Woody said.
With a liberal majority, voters can expect to see a shift in water policy, housing policy, more land use regulations and coastline protections, along with possible increases in taxes and fees to run government programs, according to the analysts.
“With Bruce Gibson winning, you’re going to see big government, and government will be the answer to all of our problems in SLO County,” Woody said.
Gorham would be concerned about increasing construction and housing costs, noting that increased regulation drives up prices. He would prefer that voters select Jones to reinforce the board majority and keep costs down in the county.
Price, however, thinks a liberal board majority would be more effective, moving away from “culture war” issues like “election denialism” and toward policy that impacts everyday issues like water use and homelessness.
“Voters want to see our supervisors doing the business of the county and addressing the bread-and-butter issues that affect every working person in the town,” Price said. “The new board majority, I think, will be in a much better position.”
At the latest, SLO County will find out by Dec. 8, which is the county clerk-recorder’s deadline for certifying the election. Until then, voters will have to sit tight and wait for the results.
This story was originally published November 18, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
