Election Updates Round 2
In Which: Bruckner-Carrillo moves up the pack in the HUSD race, Reynoso is close to striking out, and I recommend some free ebooks.
Hey, folks. I’m feeling under the weather, so this is going to be a short one. I’m hoping to feel better for Thursday’s post, but only time will tell. I appreciate y’all being cool about it.
Election Update for Monday November 11th
We got an update from the Registrar of Voters on Monday afternoon that included another few hundred thousand ballots. As of the time of this writing, the County-wide count is about 50% of the total eligible voters, but the estimate is still that at least 70% turnout should be expected.
But has anything changed? Let’s take a look at the numbers to find out.
Hayward Unified School District
This race is likely going to be the closest one this year. After the initial results, Sara Prada has jumped into 2nd place with just short of 14,000 votes (17%) with Luis Reynoso in 3rd with 13,975 (15.88%). But if I were him, I’d be worried about Austin Bruckner-Carrllo who now has 12,756 (15.53%)—a gap of less than 300 votes.
Austin has been trending upward hard since the initial vote tallies came in. He’s outpaced his next closest competitor of Sophia Jauregui who has just passed Araceli Orozco’s final vote tally in 2022. Orozco finished with 11,253 and Jauregui has 11,887, though Orozco was in a lower turnout mid-term election.
Calyn Kelley, the Establishment candidate who was supposed to oust Sara Prada, is a distant 6th with 8,966 votes (10.95%). It looks like voters weren’t necessarily swayed by endorsements and whatever other calculus the Establishment had in mind.
However, the fact that Peter Bufete is leading the vote count at 14,916 (18.16%) and has been consistently in the lead means that there’s more to this race than having endorsements and phone banking—at least if you’re an incumbent.
Hayward City Council
Although Mayor of Hayward Mark Salinas may be a bit premature in calling the race—I prefer all the votes to be counted, personally—the incumbents are more likely than ever to maintain their seats on Council. Dan Goldstein has pulled away from Tom Ferreira with an almost 1,300 vote lead.
Goldstein is still the bottom vote-getter amongst the incumbents, but he’s looking almost certain to keep his seat, especially since his lead has been increasing with time.
To Ferriera’s credit, this is also the most votes he’s ever received in his three different races for City Council. But he’ll have to wait until 2028 in order to try again and running a district election will likely require a different strategy.
AC Transit District Ward 6
A. Curtis Silva, a man who spent no time campaigning, still retains a solid lead on the next runner-up, Jesse Gunn. Silva’s 22,029 votes (52.28%) are over 9,000 votes away from Gunn’s 12,542.
Shonda Goward is a distant third place with 7,568 votes (17.96%).
If Goward hadn’t split the vote, it’s possible Gunn would have had a shot at catching up to Silva, but a more than 12 point lead is likely not going to be overcome unless something big happens during the next release.
Luis Reynoso
Luis Reynoso deserves his own special section because he ran simultaneously in 5 different races. I wanted to lay out how he did in each race:
Chabot-Las Positas Community College District (Incumbent)
5,033 (26.78%) - Losing to Hector Garcia
Oro Loma Sanitary District
3,761 (9.27%) - Losing to Benny Lee and Damaris Villalobos-Galindo
Hayward Area Recreation and Park District
19,747 (13.97%) - Losing to Rick Hatcher, Louis Manuel Andrade, and Peter Rosen
Eden Township Healthcare District
4,288 - Losing to Sabrina Aranda
Hayward Unified School District
13,975 (15.88%) - Still in the running for now
Although he got quite a few votes for HARD—more than I would have guessed—it seems pretty clear that his strategy isn’t paying off the way he might have hoped. Or if, as his website claimed, he’s mostly running to give other people a reason to campaign, I suppose he wins no matter what.
Good for him.
Next Updates
The Registrar of Voters isn’t going to release another set of votes until Friday—I know!—so we’ll have a while to wait until we get another update. None of the Statewide ballot measures have flipped and that’s a huge disappointment, but next week I’ll dig into those and, hopefully, the final update for Alameda County.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to keep yourself occupied, I recommend picking up a few free ebooks to hold you over. You can never have too much reading material.