The three frontrunners for Fresno City Council widened their leads in a vote dump on Thursday that tallied roughly 20,000 additional ballots across Fresno County.
Community organizer Ariana Martinez Lott ran up the score in her 13-point lead and declared victory on Thursday over political consultant Nav Gurm, who conceded the race Wednesday.
Lott took to social media Thursday afternoon to formally declare victory and thank her supporters.
“This is just a reflection of what grassroots campaigns can look like,” she told Fresnoland in a phone interview Thursday, “and that it is possible to win against the business-as-usual here in Fresno, where we’ve seen too much of the same political establishment pipeline picking who’s next.”
Lott spoke with Fresnoland briefly while she made dinner for her children before heading off to City Hall. She planned to urge her future colleagues on the dais to vote down Mayor Jerry Dyer’s embattled Southeast Development Area (SEDA) plan in a critical vote that got added to the council’s first meeting post-election.
“It’s by no coincidence that it’s taking place right after elections, and before the new council takes office,” said Lott, who, along with District 1 frontrunner Naindeep Singh, has been a vocal opponent of the project on the campaign trail.
Nonprofit leader Singh’s microscopic 16-vote lead over SCCCD Trustee Rob Fuentes as of Tuesday night jumped to 199 votes Thursday, carrying 50.96% to Fuentes’ 49.04%.
Singh didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the updated results Thursday.
In the District 3 council race, Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula’s double-digit lead over Fresno Unified Trustee Keshia Thomas grew slightly, maintaining 54.19% to Thomas’ 45.81%.
Pacheco puts more distance between herself and Karbassi
In the race for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors District 1 seat, Kerman Mayor Maria Pacheco padded her runaway, double-digit lead over Fresno City Councilmember Mike Karbassi, 58.05% to 41.95%. Pacheco now leads the moderate Democrat by 3,836 votes, out of nearly 24,000 ballots cast in the district.
Pacheco built her campaign on pledges to reduce response times for emergency responders in rural west Fresno County communities, strengthening business opportunities, protecting farmers and growing affordable housing.
Neither Pacheco nor Karbassi immediately returned a request for comment Thursday.
Fresno Unified school board races stay competitive
And big changes are coming to the region’s largest school district.
Retired teacher Karen Steed saw her lead shrink in her quest for the McLane seat on the Fresno Unified school board, but only moderately. Veva Islas, the longtime incumbent in the McLane area, was in third place Tuesday night, but picked up momentum Thursday, moving back into second.
Steed remains solidly in the lead with 38.74% of the vote, but Islas cut into that margin and now holds 31.06%. Challenger Mirna Garcia holds 29.71%.
In an interview late Thursday, Steed declared victory in the race, acknowledging that while the clerk still had additional votes to count, she came out of election night feeling “pretty confident that it is what it is.”
Steed also confirmed she hadn’t heard from Islas and that in a post-election exchange with Garcia, Garcia hadn’t specifically conceded the race yet.
Islas told Fresnoland late Thursday that she was not conceeding and would wait for “all the votes to be counted.”
The race was a rematch between Islas and Steed, who ran against the McLane trustee in a tight race four years ago.
“Perhaps my name is more well known. Perhaps, like with the national election, people are looking for a different way,” she said of the results this time around. “But I know I’m certainly grateful to God, that’s for sure.”
Over in Sunnyside, longtime incumbent Valerie Davis saw her lead over union leader Riley Talford shrink, and now leads by just 77 votes, 50.32% to 48.98%.
Meanwhile, the Edison-area’s crowded race ultimately produced the clearest election night winner as Fresno Councilmember Miguel Arias sailed to victory over four other contenders. Arias remains above 40%, with his next closest challenger, Daren Miller, holding at 18.51%.
Support for tax measures remains a mixed bag
And the highly-watched Measure S transportation tax appears stuck in the mud, with 53.01% of the 154,024 votes solidly opposing the measure that supporters say is critical to the future of county transportation and roads.
Andy Levine, the “Yes on S” campaign spokesperson, said in a brief interview late Thursday that the fight isn’t over yet with the county clerk estimating more than 100,000 ballots remain to be counted countywide.
“There’s still absolutely a path for this to get us over the edge — just waiting to see how next Tuesday’s count looks,” he said, referring to the next update expected from the county clerk.
Meanwhile, Measure D, the City of Fresno’s supposed general tax backstop that Mayor Jerry Dyer put on the ballot in case Measure S failed, appeared to be on very solid ground Thursday, with 57.63% of city voters backing the tax.
Fresno County voters also appear to be on their way to rejecting Measure A, the county’s proposed hotel tax, with 56.06% of voters rejecting the new out-of-towner tax amid a midterm election cycle that saw affordability re-emerge as one of the foundational issues.
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