Durfee wins District 2 supervisor election

The final votes have been counted, and Peter Durfee has won the hotly contested Butte County District 2 supervisorial race over incumbent Debra Lucero.

According to Butte County Clerk-Recorder Candace Grubbs, Durfee ended up with 5,398 votes (50.71%) while Lucero got 4,790 (45.00%). Carl Jeffries was third with 456 (4.28%).

“I’m honored and humbled that the people of District 2 have chosen me as their representative for the next four years on the Board of Supervisors,” Durfee said. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done but with the current board, all five of us want more for our community, and we will get there; it will just take some time.”

The two ran a close race that Lucero led in the early count.

In the District 3 race, Tami Ritter won considerably over her opponent by receiving 5,280 votes (68.63%) whereas challenger Mary Murphy-Waldorf got 2,413 votes (31.37%).

Ritter said she expected the outcome because of how the district boundaries were drawn and voiced her concerns over Lucero losing her seat on the board.

“My election results are no surprise with the districts as gerrymandered as they are,” Ritter said. “We anticipated this outcome for District 3; it’s District 2 that I am so very distraught about. We just lost the hardest working public servant Butte County has ever known.”

Voter turnout was merely 39.29% in Butte County.

“When we look at the number of people who even showed up to vote and the people who think their vote doesn’t matter,” Ritter said. “I don’t know how many times we have do we have to reiterate that every vote counts.”

Similarly, Alyssa Douglass took the Butte County assessor race by a landslide, garnering 25,618 votes (59%). Michael Howard gathered 9,098 votes (21.03%) and Randall Stone took 8,668 votes (19.96%).

Many of the local races were uncontested.

District Attorney Mike Ramsey ran alone in his race and received 33,162 (99.24%) of the 33,417 votes cast. Jessica Forever Miller was a write-in candidate that took the remaining votes in the race.

Like Ramsey, Sheriff Kory Honea ran uncontested in the race for Butte County sheriff taking all of the 40,175 votes.

Troy Kidd, also uncontested for treasurer-tax collector, took all of the 34,011 votes as did Keaton Denlay for clerk-recorder, a race that had 33,583 votes and Graciela Cano Gutierrez for auditor-controller with 33,193 votes.

Mary Sakuma ran without a challenger for Butte County su