District 5 race not headed for a runoff

Townsend continues to hold onto large lead

When Tulare County Supervisor District 5 candidate Dennis Townsend’s wife read Thursday’s edition of The Recorder and thought her husband might have to campaign for five more months, she was alarmed to say the least.

“I left home before the paper arrived, and my wife called later and she was in a panic,” said Townsend.

The Recorder mistakenly reported that Townsend and Virginia Gurrola would be moving on to the November election. But when a candidate receives 50 percent plus one vote in primary elections for non-statewide positions, they are declared the winner and no runoff election in November is necessary.

As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, TCOE still had 7,800 unprocessed ballots, which they hoped to have counted by the end of the day Thursday. But with only a portion of those ballots coming from District 5, it is likely that Townsend’s lead will hold and he will replace Mike Ennis as District 5 Supervisor.

The first post-election report released Wednesday evening by the Tulare County Office of Elections showed Townsend leading by a margin of 60.57 percent (3,180 votes), followed by Gurrola with 35.31 percent (1,854 votes) and Juan Figueroa Jr. with 3.73 percent (196 votes).

In a post on her campaign’s Facebook page, Gurrola congratulated Townsend and his campaign team on the victory.

“I’m gratified for the support from all around the community. To get a good decisive win was very gratifying and very humbling,” said Townsend.

Townsend said he has been congratulated by Ennis and other County Supervisors, and he is already making plans for his first official day in office on Jan. 2.

“We’ll be ready to hit the ground running,” he said.

State law gives county elections officials up to 30 days after election day to complete vote counting, auditing, and certification.

In the only other local contest where there is not a clear-cut winner or a clear-cut top two, Republican incumbent Devon Mathis continues to lead with 30.2 percent of the vote, followed by Democrat Jose Sigala with 29.6 and Republican Warren Gubler with 28.7 percent. The top two in this race regardless of party affiliation would move on to the midterm election on Nov. 6.