Mar. 17 Election Update: With Only 64,000 Ballots Countywide Remaining To Be Counted
Measure A Sales Tax Extension Continues To Fail Passage But Margin Narrows To 355 Votes
8th Dist. Reform Ticket Ovalle Narrows Gap To 140 Votes Against Second Place Incumbent (Mayor-backed) Councilman Austin Who Trails Organized Labor-Backed Thrash-Ntuk
6th Dist. Challenger Saro Has 44% Of Votes Cast, Leads Incumbent (Mayor backed) Andrews By Over 1,000 Votes
2nd Dist. Reform Ticket Fox Headed For November Runoff Against Mayor-Backed Allen
LB & Countywide Voter Turnout Est. Approx. 37% (May Go Slightly Higher)
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(March 17, 2020, 7:10 p.m.) -- A March 17 updated vote tally from the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder shows the Mayor/police-firefighter union backed Measure A sales tax extension continues to fail passage but by a narrower margin of just 355 votes (out of over 97,000 votes cast on the measure.)
All three Council candidates backed by the Mayor/police-fighters unions are finishing second to challengers. 6th Council district incumbent Vice Mayor/Councilman Dee Andrews trails organized labor-backed Suely Saro by over 1,000 votes, a gap of over 16% of votes. Ms. Saro has come within roughly 5% of the votes needed to win the race outright.
8th district Councilman Al Austin trails organized labor backed Tunua Thrash-Ntuk by a margin of over 6% of votes cast.
Only roughly 64,000 ballots remain to be counted countywide out of roughly 2,071,929 ballots countywide counted thus far. Ballots remaining to be counted countywide include:
20,000 Conditional Voter Registration
10,000 Provisional ballots
25,000 Vote by mail ballots (incl. vote by mail ballots received from Vote Centers, Drop Boxes and USPS as of March 6)
Voter turnout in Long Beach and countwide thus far are roughly 37% (will go slightly higher with final votes tallied.)
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The Measure A campaign run by Mayor Garcia, with six figure sums by LB's police/firefighter unions, has effectively been dueled to near tie and possible defeat with no organized opposition campaign (scattered lawn signs, hand distributed fliers and social network comments.) Measure A was supported by all of the Mayor/police fighter union backed candidates and by the organzied labor backed candidates. It was opposed by the two Reform Ticket candidates (Robert Fox and Juan Ovalle.)
Measure A
NO 48,815 50.18%
YES 48,460 49.82%
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In the 8th Council district, Reform Ticket candidate Juan Ovalle has reduced the gap with second place incumbent Mayor-backed Al Austin to 140 votes (a margin of 1.51% of votes counted thus far.)
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TUNUA THRASH-NTUK (N) 3,525 38.02%
AL AUSTIN II (N) 2,943 31.74%
JUAN ERICK OVALLE (N) 2,803 30.23%
First place candidate Thrash-Ntuk is leading incumbent Austin by a sizable margin of 6.58% of 8th district ballots counted thus far. Organized labor-backed Thrash-Ntuk and Mayor/LB police-firefighter union backed Austin both had "independent expenditures committees" supporting them; Reform Ticket candidate Ovalle did not. The top two finishers proceed to November runoff
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In the 6th Council district, organized labor-backed challenger Suely Saro is only roughly 5% of the votes away from winning the race outright, clobbering incumbent Vice Mayor (Mayor/police-firefighter union backed) Dee Andrews
SUELY SARO (N) 2,731 44.94%
DEE ANDREWS (N) 1,728 28.44
Both had "independent expenditure committees" supporting them. They now proceed to a November runoff.
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In the 2nd Council district, Reform Ticket candidate Robert Fox holds a 93 vote lead over Mayor-police/firefighter union backed Cindy Allen. Jeanette Barrera is in third place ahead of CSULB Professor Dr. Eduardo Lara (backed by incumbent Jeannine Pearce who chose not to seek re-election.)
ROBERT FOX (N) 3,008 27.36%
CINDY ALLEN (N) 2,915 26.52%
JEANETTE BARRERA (N) 2,185 19.88%
EDUARDO LARA (N) 2,108 19.18%
In addition to money spent by the LBPOA PAC for its own "independent expenditure campaign" backing Allen, she also had support from a second "independent expenditure committee" supporting her. Ms. Allen and Mr. Fox now proceed to a November runoff..
In LB School Board races, Tonia Reyes Uranga (42.54%) and Erik Miller (36.58%) are headed to a November runoff in Central/WLB School District 2. In SE LB, Doug Otto is elected, finishing thus far with 51.37% of the vote.
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Support really independent news in Long Beach. No one in LBREPORT.com's ownership, reporting or editorial decision-making has ties to development interests, advocacy groups or other special interests; or is seeking or receiving benefits of City development-related decisions; or holds a City Hall appointive position; or has contributed sums to political campaigns for Long Beach incumbents or challengers. LBREPORT.com isn't part of an out of town corporate cluster and no one its ownership, editorial or publishing decisionmaking has been part of the governing board of any City government body or other entity on whose policies we report. LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. You can help keep really independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.
