How did Jim Dantona win his supervisor seat? Here’s an inside look at the vote

The final results are in for the District 2 supervisor seat that covers San Luis Obispo County’s North Coast area, with Jim Dantona winning a fairly tight race.

The district includes Los Osos, Morro Bay, Cayucos, Cambria and parts of the San Luis Obispo with Dantona winning nine district precincts and Michael Erin Woody seven.

Overall, Dantona won by 1,204 votes out of 17,546 ballots cast. The final count: Dantona got 9,375 to Woody’s 8,171.

While the total districtwide vote was fairly close with a 53.4% advantage for Dantona, the results from two of the jurisdictions in the district appear to have propelled his win.

In Los Osos’ four precincts, Dantona won with 3,524 votes vs. 2,720 for Woody — a margin of 804 that made up almost two-thirds of the 1,200 victory margin. Looking at it percentage-wise, Dantona gained 57% of the vote in Los Osos vs. 53.4% district wide.

Unincorporated Los Osos carries a small-town image, but it is the largest block of voters participating in District 2 with 6,244 ballots cast vs. 4,325 in Morro Bay and 2,746 in Cambria. The remaining significant block of voters was in San Luis Obispo with 2,149 voters casting ballots.

So how did Woody do in his hometown Morro Bay where the family is well-known and a strong contingent of anti-wind and anti-battery storage voters clearly favored him? Not as strong as some might have expected.

SLO County’s final election numbers show that Woody won the city of Morro Bay, but not by a huge margin, 2,284 vs. 2,041 for Dantona, or a 243-vote margin.

On the other hand, Cayucos, where Dantona lives, favored Woody with 689 votes to 554 for Dantona, for by a 135-vote advantage.

In Cambria, Dantona eked out a win with 188 more votes than Woody.

But then Dantona also won in San Luis Obispo, where the western portion of the city falls within District 2, with 1,396 votes to 753 for Woody, for a 643-vote margin.

SLO and Los Osos pretty much wrapped up the election for Dantona.

Voter turnout in District 2 was strong with 61.5% of registered voters participating and 60% of voters voting by mail. Both these percentages are higher than the average countrywide.

Los Osos voters were obviously engaged, turning out by a 65% margin in approving Measure B, a tax to buy the Sunnyside school for a park, but also voting in the supervisor race, too.

On the ballot measure, 3,465 Los Osos voters supported Measure B, almost the same number of Los Osos voters pulling the lever for Dantona (3,524).

Supporters of Woody in Los Osos were vocal on social media, raising the anti-Bruce Gibson issue and saying that Gibson favored growth in Los Osos and suggesting that Dantona, backed by Gibson in this race, would do the same.

But if that was a dominant issue for some, a majority of Los Osos voters did not seem to be swayed. Dantona is Gibson’s chief of staff until January when he will take his seat.

Another factor in this contest were the partisan claims in what is considered a nonpartisan position.

The talk in the Dantona camp was of Democrats vs. Republicans, particularly anti-Trump rhetoric. Los Osos is a strong Democrat stronghold, staging some of the biggest anti-Trump “No Kings” demonstrations in recent times. Dantona made the claim that “District 2 had not elected a Republican for county supervisor in 40 years.”

Woody was a Republican in the past but has declared he is an independent as far back as 2019. He rejected the attack mailers from his opponent that attempted to characterize him as a hard-line conservative, stating his views have evolved.

He received an endorsement from the San Luis Obispo Tribune, whcih noted that the ”race could come down to whether or not North Coast voters want a candidate closely aligned with Gibson, or are ready for a change.”

But Democrats helped pay for multiple mailers to residents to solicit support for Dantona, declaring he “shares our values” and featuring endorsements by the local Democrat office holders as well as three supervisors.

How strong a Democratic voter block is Los Osos? In the November 2024 election pitting Trump vs. Kamala Harris, Los Osos voted around 75% for Harris with 4,318 votes vs. 1,619 for Trump.

John Lindt is the editor of the Sierra2theSea.net news site.