County Supervisors Ron Roberts and Bill Horn hold early leads over their opponents after the release of the first results, but at least Horn is in jeopardy of being the first supervisor to be pushed to a runoff since 1998.
The early results show Horn with 45.97 percent of the vote, short of the 50 percent he needs to win outright.
The current supervisors have been together as a five-person block since 1995. In that time, only one supervisor has been pushed beyond the primary to a runoff election, and that was Horn in 1998.
His principal opponent, Steve Gronke, grabbed 21.34 percent of the vote.
Roberts is hovering right at the 50 percent threshold with Stephen Whitburn at 19.05 percent and Shelia Jackson at 17.58 percent.
In Roberts’ district, the Democrats’ strategy was unusual but clear: They urged voters to select any one of their four candidates — Whitburn, Jackson, Juan del Rio and Margaret Moody — in the hopes of keeping Roberts below the 50 percent threshold, thereby forcing him to a runoff.
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Term Limits
Whoever wins those supervisor races, it looks like they’ll only have eight years to serve in office maximum.
The labor-led initiative to place term limits on the county supervisors shot out to a big early lead, 72 percent to 28 percent.
The measure was sold as a way to get the current supervisors, all Republicans, out of office. But as our Scott Lewis pointed out, it will have little impact on the current bunch.
We’ll be back with more when we’ve got it.
— ANDREW DONOHUE