Christy Smith concedes to Mike Garcia in 27th Congressional District race
Thursday’s post-election results showed no significant changes in local elections as the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk released its latest update of votes from the Nov. 8 election.
But, with 332,550 ballots remaining to be counted, the race to represent the state’s 40th Assembly District and the local race to represent Trustee Area No. 1 in the Newhall School District continued to be neck and neck.
Incumbent Suzette Martinez Valladares held her lead with 50.66% (71,632) of the votes in the race to represent the state’s 40th Assembly District as of Thursday’s post-election results, but Democratic challenger Pilar Schiavo followed close behind with 49.34% (69,774) of the votes.
Valladares led by 1,858 votes over Schiavo.
In addition, in the Newhall School District race to represent Trustee Area No. 1, incumbent Brian Walters held the top spot by just five votes over challenger Donna Robert.
As of Thursday’s update, in the Newhall district race to represent Division 1, Walters received 50.07% (1,828) of the votes while Robert received 49.93% (1,823) of the votes.
In the third closest race, Maria Gutzeit held her lead to represent Division 3 on the Santa Clarita Water Agency board of directors with 51.33% (12,224) of the votes over Lynne Plambeck, who has received 48.67% (11,591) of the votes.
27th Congressional District
Democratic challenger Christy Smith conceded to incumbent Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, on Wednesday.
“I’d like to thank everyone who was a part of the campaign for the communities of CA27,” Smith wrote in a prepared statement posted on Twitter. “While the results are not as we’d hoped, our team is grateful to every donor and every volunteer who was part of the #TeamChristy.”
As of Thursday’s returns, Garcia led the race with 53.97% (94,538) of the votes over Smith, who has received 46.03% (80,614) of the votes.
Santa Clarita City Council
Incumbents Bill Miranda, Laurene Weste and Marsha Mclean held the three top spots as of Thursday’s update.
Weste held the top spot in the race for City Council with 19.96% (29,986) of the votes. Miranda remained in second with 19.64% (29,502) of the votes, followed by McLean, in third, with 17.16% (25,783) of the votes.
Denise Lite, who is in fourth in the polls, has received 15.47% (23,246) of the votes.
Jeffrey Malick held fifth place in the polls with 8.66% (13,007) of the votes, followed by Selina Thomas with 8.41% (12,638) of the votes, David Barlavi with 7.34% (11,023) of the votes, Douglas Fraser with 2.35% (3,523) of the votes and Kody Amour, who dropped out of the race in September, with 1.01% (1,511) of the vote.
William S. Hart Union High School District
In the race to represent Trustee Areas No. 2, No. 3 and No. 5 on the governing board for the Hart district, Thursday’s returns showed incumbents Bob Jensen, Cherise Moore and Joe Messina in the lead.
Jensen held the lead with 67.39% (10,547) of the votes over Andrew Taban, who has received 32.61% (5,103) of the vote, in the race for Trustee Area No. 2. Moore was in the same position as Jensen with 61.45% (6,406) of the votes over Teresa Todd, who has received 38.55% (4,018) of the votes, to represent Trustee Area No. 3.
In the race to represent Trustee Area No. 5, Messina has received 60.14% (11,820) of the votes and challenger Rebecca Hindman has received 39.86% (7,834) of the votes.
Saugus Union School District
In the Saugus district, as of Thursday’s update Cassandra Love held her lead over Jesus Henao, with 52.38% (2,558) and 47.62% (2,326) of the votes, respectively, to see who’ll represent Trustee Area No. 1 on the governing board.
Anna Griese has received 57.91% (4,321) of the votes while incumbent Laura Arrowsmith has received 42.09% (3,140) of the votes in the race to represent Trustee Area No. 2. Arrowsmith’s name appeared on the election ballot, but she dropped out in September because she moved out of the trustee area.
In the race to represent Trustee Area No. 5, Wednesday’s returns showed incumbent Christopher Trunkey ahead of his opponent with 51.81% (2,944) of the votes against challenger Sharlene Duzick, who has received 48.19% (2,738) of the votes.
Newhall School District
In the race to represent Trustee Area No. 2, Rachelle Haddoak held her lead with 53.76% (2,509) of the votes whereas Suverna Mistry has received 46.24% (2,158) of the votes, with an unknown number of ballots remaining to be counted.
Castaic Union School District
Thursday’s results indicated Mayreen Burk’s lead held steady in the race to represent Trustee Area E over Tracy Ford. Burk received 62.24% (610) of the votes while Ford received 37.76% (370) of the votes.
Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency
In the race for three open seats on the SCV Water Agency’s board of directors, Thursday’s update showed Bill Cooper and Dirk Marks still held strong leads in the polls to represent Division 1 and Division 2, respectively.
Cooper led in the race to represent Division 1 with 64.70% (13,683) votes, followed by Nicole Wilson, who received 19.52% (4,129) of the votes, and Melissa Cantu with 15.78% (3,337) of the votes.
Marks held his lead with 55.90% (14,826) of the votes to represent Division 2, followed by Sage Rafferty with 30.89% (8,194) of the votes and Kathy Colley who received 13.21% (3,504) of the votes.
Next Update
According to the Registrar-Recorder’s Office, Wednesday’s additional voting results added 131,611 ballots to the total returns reported previously, which brings the total up to 2,129,498 ballots counted.
After Wednesday’s count, an estimated 332,550 ballots remained to be counted countywide. It remained unclear how many of those ballots applied to specific individual local races.
The Registrar-Recorder’s Office is slated to announce its next update of the preliminary election results on Friday between 4 and 5 p.m.
