Mar. 20 Election Update: Measure A Sales Tax Extension Continues To Fail Passage But Margin Shrinks To 130 Votes
Roughly 20,100 votes remain to be counted countywide
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(March 20, 2020, 7:20 p.m.) -- A March 20 updated vote tally shows LB's Measure A sales tax extension (backed by LB Mayor Garcia and LB's police/firefighter unions) is now only failing passage by a razor thin 130 votes out of 98,270 ballots cast (a margin of 0.14% of votes cast.)
NO 49,195 50.07%
YES 49,065 49.93%
Roughly 20,100 ballots remain to be counted countywide:
Conditional Voter Registration: 10,500
Provisional ballots: 5,000
Vote by Mail ballots: 3,600 (incl. vote by mail ballots received from Vote Centers, Drop Boxes and USPS as of March 6)
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. 8th district Councilman Al Austin trails organized labor backed Tunua Thrash-Ntuk by a margin of over 6% of votes cast. Robert Fox leads 2nd place finisher Cindy Allen by 82 votes. The top two in each race proceed to a November 2020 runoff.
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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 trails second place incumbent Mayor-backed Al Austin to 132 votes (a margin of 1.41% of votes counted thus far.)
TUNUA THRASH-NTUK (N) 3,568 38.05%
AL AUSTIN II (N) 2,970 31.68%
JUAN ERICK OVALLE (N) 2,838 30.27%
First place candidate Thrash-Ntuk is leading incumbent Austin by a margin of over 6% 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 a little more than 5% of the votes away from winning the race outright, clobbering incumbent Vice Mayor (Mayor/police-firefighter union backed) Dee Andrews
SUELY SARO (N) 2,774 44.86%
DEE ANDREWS (N) 1,767 28.58%
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 82 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) 3,035 27.23%
CINDY ALLEN (N) 2,953 26.49%
JEANETTE BARRERA (N) 2,229 20.00%
EDUARDO LARA (N) 2,135 19.15%
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 (42.55%) and Erik Miller (36.55%) are headed to a November runoff in Central/WLB School District 2. In SE LB, Doug Otto is elected, finishing thus far with 51.29% 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.
