Who is winning, losing in SLO County races? See the Election Night results
Election Day has come and gone, and thousands of ballots cast in advance and on Tuesday have been tallied up by workers at the San Luis Obispo County Elections Office.
The Tribune is here to provide updates on the results of all the most important local races.
These tallies are as of the final Election Night ballot drop, with 100% of precincts reporting. In total, 82,548 ballots were counted Tuesday night, representing about 45.2% of total registered voters in San Luis Obispo County.
The county is expected to resume counting ballots received leading up to and on Election Day in the coming days.
Who leads city council races?
With the fourth ballot count release at 12:20 a.m., a number of local candidates held onto early leads in their races, while others continued to be much closer.
In the Paso Robles City Council race, Kris Beal was running neck-and-neck with Sharon Roden in the battle for District 1. The pair were separate by only 15 votes as of the fourth ballot county.
Meanwhile, Steve Gregory held onto his early lead in the race for the District 3 seat.
In Atascadero, the race continued to be a nail-biter, with Seth Peek and Mark Dariz taking on the barest of leads over Tori Keen for two open spots on the City Council — though the trio continued to be separated by less than 2 percentage points.
Both cities’ proposed sales tax measures continued to be heading toward passing as of the final Election Night tally.
In the South County, newcomer Kassi Dee continued to hold a narrow early lead in the race to become Grover Beach’s next mayor, while Kathy McCorry held onto a slight lead in the race for the District 3 seat on the City Council.
The city’s Measure G-24, which would repeal increased water and wastewater rates passed by the council to help fund the now defunct Central Coast Blue project, also continued to pass as of the final Election Night tally, with 65.6% of the ballots cast voting yes.
The recall of Councilmember Dan Rushing was also passing with 56.5% of voters voting yes as of the latest release.
Meanwhile, in Arroyo Grande, Caren Ray Russom continued to hold her solid lead in the mayoral race over Gaea Powell, while Jamie Maraviglia did the same in the race for the city’s District 3 seat.
In Pismo Beach, incumbents Mayor Ed Waage, Scott Newton and Marcia Guthrie all appeared to have retained their seats on the City Council as of the final Election Night tally.
Both cities’ sales tax measures were also passing as of 12:20 a.m.
In San Luis Obispo, Mayor Erica Stewart secured an easy win over repeat mayoral candidate Donald E. Hedrick, while Jan Marx and Mike Boswell also seemed heading toward easy victories in the race to fill two spots on the City Council, as of midnight.
Morro Bay battery storage facility measure
Morro Bay’s Measure A-24 was passing as of the final round of results at 12:20 a.m.
The measure would freeze the land use on the mothballed Morro Bay Power Plant property as visitor-serving commercial, essentially blocking the city from approving a proposed battery storage facility at the site.
Vistra Corp., the company that proposed the facility, recently paused its application from the city, however, announcing plans to pursue a new state approval process that would bypass local jurisdiction.
SLO County school board results
A number of seats are open this year on the county’s various school boards.
Early results for those races were as follows:
In the Atascadero Unified School District, Joey Arnold, Corinne Kuhnle and Veronica DeCoster narrowly held onto the top three spots on the ballot as of the final Election Night update, though challenger Jodi M. Taylor was less than 1 percentage point behind.
Also in the North County, Nathan Williams, Laurene D. McCoy, Leo Castillo and Kenney Enney stayed in the lead for the four open seats on the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District, and Ted Dubost, Cheryl Parks and Matt Allison held solid leads for Templeton Unified School District.
Along the North Coast, Peter J. Schuler and Dan W. Puett were ahead for the two open seats on the Cayucos Elementary School District
In the South County, incumbents Dee Santos, Vicki Meagher and Don Stewart all held strong leads for the three open seats on the Lucia Mar Unified School District.
Erica Flores Baltodano was also headed toward victory in the race for one seat on the San Luis Coastal Unified School District board as of midnight.
Three districts also had school bonds on the ballot — Atascadero, Lucia Mar and Templeton.
All three bond measures were within spitting distance of approval as of the final Election Night ballot drop, although only Atascadero’s was passing as of 12:20 a.m.
Meanwhile Templeton’s school bond had dropped to 54.8% approval, just barely missing the 55% threshold to pass. Lucia Mar’s bond measure was in a similar boat, with 53.3% approval as of the final Election Night update.
Early results from CSDs and Port San Luis Harbor District
In the race for two seats on the Oceano Community Services District board, Shirley Gibson held a more-than-12-point lead over Charles Varni, 56.3% to 43.7%, in Division 5, while Linda Austin appeared headed to victory thanks to a big lead over Angela Smith, 77.7% to 22.3%.
In the race for two seats on the Nipomo Community Services District board, John Joyce was still in the lead as of 12:20 a.m. with 49.4%, followed by 38.9% for Philip Henry III and 11.5% for James Wejrowski.
The Port San Luis Harbor District had its Division 2 seat up for grabs, and Richard Scangarello was still ahead with 60.5% to 39.5% for Katie Lichtig.
On the North Coast, the Cambria Community Healthcare District’s Measure C-24 to improve the district’s facilities was getting strong support, with 76.2% of voters supporting the measure and 23.8% opposed.
The measure requires a two-thirds vote to pass along with approval of Proposition 5.
Who is ahead in state races?
A number of state offices are up for election this year.
For Congress, Jimmy Panetta was ahead in the race to represent District 19 with 70.3% of the vote, while Salud Carbajal was ahead for District 24 with 63.5%, as of midnight
In the state Legislature, four seats were up for grabs.
In the State Senate, John Laird was easily ahead for District 17 with 66.8% of the vote and Monique Limon was ahead for District 21 with 63.1% as of midnight.
In the State Assembly, Dawn Addis was heading for a smooth win in District 30 with 64% of the vote and Gregg Hart was ahead in District 37 with 62.4% of the vote, as of midnight.
Were SLO County voters favoring Harris or Trump?
San Luis Obispo County voters significantly favored Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump, according to the third round of Election Night results.
As of 12:20 a.m., 55.7% of ballots counted were in favor of Harris, compared to Trump’s 42%.
By comparison, President Joe Biden took home a total of 55.3% of the San Luis Obispo County vote in 2020, while Trump garnered 42.2%.
When will results be finalized?
The first round of results Tuesday night include vote-by-mail ballots that were received and processed in the weekend ahead of Election Night. Results later in the night were from ballots cast in person on Election Day.
Most races were unlikely to be decided Tuesday night, as vote-by-mail ballots will continue to be received and counted by the San Luis Obispo County Elections Office in the coming days.
Ballots received by the county after Election Day are still eligible to be counted as long as they are postmarked no later than Nov. 5.
According to San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano, the county must certify its election results by Dec. 3.
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 8:19 PM.
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