As of Friday afternoon, June 6, about 97 percent of the expected ballots from the June 3 primary election had been counted. The Riverside County Registrar of Voters has announced that about 5,000 provisional ballots are left to count, but further results will not be released until Wednesday evening, June 11.

 

State Senate District 28

In the state Senate District 28 race, a recount is a very likely possibility given the closeness of the race. The top two vote getters will face each other in the November general election.

For the first time since vote counting began Tuesday evening, former Assembly member Bonnie Garcia (R) has moved into one of the top two spots. She trails the leading vote getter, 3rd District Supervisor Jeff Stone (R), by nearly 2,000 votes. But she leads Glenn Miller (R), of Indio, by 362 votes.

Stone has 22 percent of the vote. The next three candidates are very close: Garcia has 19.8 percent of the vote; Miller has 19.4 percent; and Phil Drucker (D) has 18.6 percent.

A total of 92,200 votes were cast. The separation between Garcia and the fourth highest, Drucker, is only 1,068 votes. Anna Nevenic (D) was fifth with 15.2 percent of the vote.

It appears that Miller and Garcia split the desert Republican vote allowing Stone to take the western portion of the district. If Garcia remains second, the question is how will Miller’s and Drucker’s supporters vote in November.

“Our goal from the beginning was to get to November,” said Matt Rexroad, Garcia’s campaign manager, who believes the large Latino population and Democrats will favor Garcia over Stone.

He also argued that a large portion of Miller’s support were voters turned off by the Garcia and Stone campaigns. “In November, they’ll have to make a choice,” he said.

“It is a tremendous honor to be the top choice of voters in the 28th District,” said Stone in a press release. “I have dedicated my public service career to fiscally responsible government and protecting our way of life and will continue to do so as our next state senator.”

 

Turnout

So far, 191,809 votes have been counted countywide. This represents about 21.6 percent of registered voters. Statewide, almost 3.9 million votes were cast in the primary election, which represents 21.8 percent of all registered voters.

In comparison, the June 2012 presidential primary election turnout was 31 percent. In the 2010 primary, 33 percent of registered voters cast ballots. Turnout has never been less than 20 percent since records have been kept starting in 1914.

As usual, while overall turnout was significantly less (about one-fourth) of the 2012 presidential election, Hill voters continued to surpass countywide interest. Based just on early voting, the turnout in Idyllwild was 21.5 percent, Pine Cove 25.4 percent and 23.4 percent in Mountain Center. These percentages do not include votes cast at the polling sites.

 

Other races

In races of local interest, Mike Hestrin has a lead of about 15,900 votes over incumbent District Attorney Paul Zellerbach. Nearly 143,300 votes were cast for this office.

In the other contested countywide races, Sheriff Stan Sniff garnered about 63 percent of the counted vote and leads his challenger Chad Bianco. County Superintendent of Schools Ken Young has a similar lead over his opponent Michael Scott.

In uncontested county races, Peter Aldana is the next assessor-county clerk, Don Kent returns as treasurer-tax collector and Paul Angulo continues as auditor/controller.

In the Congressional District 36 race, incumbent U.S. Rep. Dr. Raul Ruiz (D) received 50 percent of the vote and state Asssemblyman Brian Nestande is second with 34.6 percent. Ray Haynes trails with 15.2 percent. Ruiz and Nestande will face each other in November.

The two propositions — 41 for a bond for veterans’ housing and 42 public records costs — received more than 60 percent of the county vote and easily passed statewide.