Fewer than 500 votes separate Arcata Democrat Rusty Hicks from Santa Rosa Democrat Chris Rogers in the State Assembly Race for District Two.
Seven competitors were on the ballot to replace Jim Wood, who announced he wouldn’t seek reelection.
As of Wednesday, March 6 – Republican Michael Greer from Del Norte is the top vote-getter in the race, with 28% of the vote.
Hicks and Rogers are vying for second place with 486 votes separating them.
In a statewide primary, the two candidates with the most votes move on to the November general election, regardless of party.
Hicks’ campaign released a statement Wednesday afternoon, saying: “We will continue to follow election results as they come in and support ensuring that every single vote is counted.”
“The race remains too close to call,” Chris Rogers said in a statement. “There are thousands more ballots to be counted in the coming days.”
All 581 precincts in District Two have reported in, but only with a partial count of the votes. There are still mail-in ballots arriving and elections offices are counting provisional ballots cast on Primary Day.
“California is known for being a state that certifies the results later,” Humboldt County Elections Supervisor Juan Pablo Cervantes said. “There’s a couple of pieces to that. First is the shift of voting patterns. More and more we are finding vote by mail ballots are being dropped off on Election Day.”
Voters also had until March 5 to postmark their primary ballots, which must arrive in their respective county election offices by Tuesday, March 12.
Every vote is important, especially in a close race like this one.
“Some of our local contests, even one of our district contests, they’re really close. They’re kind of neck and neck. Fewer than 2,000 votes can make a difference in some of our statewide races. In some of the local ones, we have some that are maybe 300 to 400 votes away from shifting who the winner might be,” Cervantes said.
County election offices have until April 2 to send their official vote count to the Secretary of State’s Office. The Secretary of State then has until April 12 to certify the primary results.
Get an updated look at the race results here: https://electionresults.sos.ca.gov/returns/state-assembly/district/2
