The Bakersfield Californian

Kern voters may decide state Senate race

BY JOHN DONEGAN jdonegan@bakersfield.com

Only a few votes may judge the outcome of a historically close election for state Senate in California’s 16th District.

As of Monday afternoon, Sen. Melissa Hurtado, who currently serves the 14th district, led by 12 votes, according to the California Secretary of State.

Her lead is small, and shortlived. It’s only the second time since Election Day last month that Hurtado, D-Bakersfield, has led the race.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Hurtado campaign said that they are on standby until more results come in.

“Sen. Hurtado is eagerly awaiting for the election results like everyone else and looks forward to seeing the final certified election outcome,” said Lisa Gasperoni, a spokeswoman for the Hurtado campaign.

While winners of their respective districts, such as Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield, and Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, traveled to Sacramento on Monday for their swearing-in ceremony, Hurtado and her challenger David Shepard, R-Porterville, returned to their camps where they will wait out what is the final week of this tenacious election cycle.

“About an hour ago, senators were sworn into office with no representative for District 16,” Matthew Rexroad, a California GOP consultant, said Monday. “Which is unfortunate because there is a talk about taxes on the oil and energy industry and the largest area for energy and oil will not have a representative to speak on it.”

For the majority of the time since election night nearly a month ago, challenger and firsttime candidate Shepard stayed in front, securing the lead in three of the four counties included in the new district.

“We still feel pretty good about David’s chances for the state Senate,” Rexroad said.

The last county left to finish its reporting is Kern, which, according to the state website, has 100 votes left. These will likely be the deciding votes, as the other three counties that run within the district — Fresno, Kings and Tulare — have finished their count.

Under the newly drawn map, 44 percent of Kern County is within district lines, and therefore plays a vital role in this election’s outcome. By comparison, about 2 percent of Fresno voters live in District 16, despite it having a larger overall population. The new district lines took effect Monday.

Hurtado jumped to SD 16th after 2021 redistricting batched her with a fellow Democratic candidate. She has since fared well in Kern County, where she holds 58 percent of the votes, about 10,000 more ballots than Shepard.

“We always believed Sen. Hurtado would do well in Kern County,” Gasperoni said. “Sen. Hurtado has a strong record fighting for the Valley including winning millions in funding for water supplies, public safety and fire protection and healthcare. The

voters in Kern County want Sen. Hurtado back in the Senate fighting for them.”

Shepard’s campaign has aimed its frustration at the Kern County Elections Office. In a video posted to his social media, Shepard said he was disappointed in the elections office’s lack of speed and accuracy in its reportage, and said the office has misled the public.

“Given that Kern County has a history of running close elections, one would imagine that over the years having close congressional state and local elections, that (their) elections office would improve its reporting procedures and methods, to improve accuracy over time,” Shepard said. “Unfortunately, just the opposite has taken place.”

He pointed to two instances when he said the county misreported, once on Nov. 18, and again on Dec. 2. With the two reports, his lead was shortened and then lost.

“Both of these inaccurate updates greatly reduced my lead in the race, with the first inaccurate report reducing my lead by 3,000 votes and the second inaccurate update causing my lead to disappear for the first time since election night,” Shepard said.

Rexroad, a consultant on Shepard’s campaign, said he believes the 100 remaining votes is not accurate.

“We are quite confident that the 100 votes is not accurate and will be vastly undercounted,” he said.

Shepard originally pulled ahead in the initial count by almost 3,400 votes in the first week after the election. Hurtado has since chipped away at this lead, and pulled ahead by a tiny margin, making this race one of the few still undecided, and one of the closest in state history.

Confident of his lead, Shepard had planned to go up to Sacramento on Monday, to sit in on state meetings regarding potential taxes on oil and energy industries.

“It’s one of the closest races in California history,” Rexroad said. “And for the Shepard campaign, we feel we ran a good campaign. The way we see it, we battled it out to a tie and we may still be ahead in the final analysis.”

Shepard said he is fine with the idea of Hurtado winning, but said that these issues with the elections office need to be addressed. In the video, he called on Kern officials to launch a full audit on the department’s handling of the elections and added that “resignations should be expected.”

“Folks from across the aisle are speaking out about the complete and total joke the elections office has been operating as,” he said.

And while he said he’ll be happy with the results come Thursday, Shepard said he doesn’t expect a call from Hurtado, regardless of the outcome.

“She wasn’t present on the campaign trail and she wasn’t present much in office, so I don’t expect her to reach out at all,” Shepard said.

County elections officials have until Thursday to submit their counting to the state, while California’s certification is due by Dec. 16.

FRONT PAGE

en-us

2022-12-06T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-06T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://bakersfield.pressreader.com/article/281565179792527

Alberta Newspaper Group