Third District Supervisor race TOO CLOSE TO CALL
The race for Kern County’s Third District Board of Supervisors seat was too early to call Tuesday as early results showed all three candidates within 8 percentage points of each other.
With 5,588 votes counted as of about 9:30 p.m., school district trustee Jeff Flores led with 37.6 percent of the vote, retired Marine Brian Smith was second with 33.2 percent, and former homeless shelter administrator Louis Gill had 29.2 percent. Final results were not available by The California’s press deadline.
The three men are vying to succeed Third District Supervisor Mike Maggard, who announced in January he wouldn’t seek a fifth term in office after 30 years in public service.
Once all votes are counted, the leading candidate will be declared the winner unless none of the men running for the seat wins a majority of votes, in which case the top two finishers Tuesday will meet again on the general election ballot Nov. 8.
Flores, Maggard’s chief of staff and a trustee at the Kern High School District, said Tuesday evening he was optimistic and excited but noted “it’s very early still.”
“Let’s see what happens with subsequent (vote-count) refreshes,” Flores said.
Smith, a Marine Corps veteran and retired assistant chief with the California Highway Patrol, noted after the release of initial vote counts that the whole process of running for office is new to him, and that “the whole experience is just exciting to me.”
He added that he was proud of the hard work his team had put into the campaign.
Gill is former CEO of the Bakersfield Homeless Center and the Alliance Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.
The Third District seat represents much of northeast, northwest and southwest Bakersfield.