By JP Crumrine
Correspondent
It’s the morning after the election. The Riverside County registrar of voters has posted preliminary results. Conditional ballots, drop off ballots and vote-by-mail ballots that are postmarked on or before election day also remain to be counted.
As of 3 a.m., the registrar is reporting voter turnout in yesterday’s Presidential Primary election was 16.1% in Riverside County compared to the statewide average of 18%. Turnout tended to be greater in the smaller counties, such as 49% of Sierra’s 2,000 voters or 44% of Amador’s 25,000 voters. In Los Angeles County, estimated turnout was 16%. In San Diego County it was 22% and 12% of San Bernardino’s voters cast ballots.
Presidential races
In the Democratic Presidential contest, President Joe Biden easily won the state’s delegates with 89% of the vote counted. HIs Riverside County result was similar – 90%
In the Republican primary, Donald Trump was the victor with 78% of the Republican votes, but he was stronger in Riverside County with 83% of the ballots. Nikki Haley was second statewide and in the county.
U.S. Senate
In the contest to replace former Sen. Diane Feinstein, the state’s voters decided a nominee from each party was their preference to two Democratic nominees.
Representative Adam Schiff was the top Democrat and Republican and former Los Angeles Dodger Steve Garvey was second. They will be battling through the November election.
Statewide, Schiff and Garvey were very close. Only 29,000 votes separated them out of nearly 3.3 million votes. Schiff had 33.2% and Garvey earned 32.4%. The two other major Democratic candidates were far behind. Katie Porter of Orange County had 13.8% and Barbara Lee of Oakland could only capture 7.4%.
In Riverside County, Garvey leads with 39% of votes counted and Schiff received 31%.
Despite the results for the candidates in the November election for a full six-year Senate term, Garvey may be a senator before Schiff. Garvey has the lead in the election to fill the final two months of Feinstein’s term. He has 34.6% of the vote compared to Schiff’s 30.8%.
U.S Congress
In the race for Congressional District 41, the two November candidates will again be Republican incumbent Ken Calvert and Democrat Will Rollins. This was the choice in 2022, which Calvert won. Tuesday, Calvert again garnered the majority of votes cast with 50.2% and Rollins collected 41%. A distant third was Anna Nevenic with 8.8% of the votes.
In an early press release, Calvert said, “I’m humbled by the incredible outpouring of support I’ve received in the early returns so far, which I am confident will only increase as ballots continue to be counted.”
Assembly District 36
Assembly District 36 encompasses parts of three counties — Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino. Overall, Republican Jeff Gonzalez led the seven candidates to replace incumbent Eduardo Garcia, who retired.
Gonzalez captured 34.5% of the total district vote. His challenger in November will be Democrat Joey Acuna, who had 17.9%. Edgard Garcia, another Democratic candidate, earned 15.6% of the vote.
In all three counties, Gonzalez was the vote leader followed by Acuna.
Gonzalez and fellow Republican Kalin Morse collected 44% of the total district votes cast.
Riverside County has about 58% of the total registered voters in AD 36.
Assembly District 47
In another repeat from 2022, incumbent Republican Gregg Wallis will face Democratic challenger Christy Holstege in November for the state’s Assembly District 47 seat.
However, in this primary, Holstege got 49% of the total district vote and Wallis had 44.7%. The third candidate, Democrat Jamie Swain, got the balance with 5.3%.
In 2022, it took weeks to determine that Wallis defeated Holstege by 85 votes out of nearly 170,000 ballots cast. Tuesday, only about 70,000 ballots were cast.
Holstege gained the majority of Riverside County votes with 52.5% compared to Wallis’s total of 42%. In San Bernardino County, which has about 25% of the district’s total voters, Wallis had 61% of the vote. While he had about 3,600 more votes there, in Riverside County, Holstege had about 5,900 more votes in the primary.
Riverside Board of Education
In the Trustee Area 4 race (which includes the Hill), Bruce Dennis easily won re-election with more than 90% of the votes compared tothis challenger Sergei Vinkov.
Proposition 1
Proposition combines a $6.4 billion bond with changes to the Mental Health Services Act, initially approved in 2004. These proposals are intended to provide mental health care and drug or alcohol treatment to people, including to the homeless.
Statewide it appears that Prop 1 may eke out a victory. As of Wednesday morning, 50.2% of ballots voted “Yes.” Its lead is only 14,600 out of more than 3.8 million votes.
In Riverside County, the opposition had 50.8% of votes, 3,200 more votes than its supporters.
County supervisors
There were races for two county supervisorial districts — 1 and 3.
In District 3, incumbent Supervisor Chuck Washington won reelection. By earning a majority of the votes — 54.6% — he will not have to face a November race for reelection.
In District 1, incumbent Kevin Jeffries is retiring at the end of his term. The two candidates on the November ballot will be Richard Roth, a former state senator, and Jose Medina, a former Assembly member.
