ANDERSON WIDENS LEAD, SANTEE COUNCIL RACE STILL CLOSE

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version Share this

By Miriam Raftery

November 16, 2020 (San Diego's East County) - With the latest update from the Registrar of Voters, former State Senator Joel Anderson has increased his lead over Poway Mayor Steve Vaus in the second supervisorial district to 259 votes, out of nearly 290,000 votes cast.  Anderson has 50.04% and Vaus 49.96%, a difference of less than one-tenth of one percent.  But with only 10,000 ballots remaining to be counted countywide, with perhaps only around 2,000 ballots per supervisorial district, hopes of Vaus to regain the lead are rapidly diminishing.

Both Anderson and Vaus are Republicans, though Anderson was endorsed by the County Republican Party. Vaus won endorsement of Dianne Jacob, who is retiring as Supervisor after over 25 years due to term limits. If Anderson's lead holds, he may well owe his election to party slate mailers backing his candidacy. Both candidates were well funded and blitzed votes with a barrage of mailers of their own, some touting their experience and issue positions, others focused on negative messaging regarding their opponents.

The open city council seat in Santee is even closer, with only five votes separating the two candidates. Dustin Trotter, a contractor, leads Samantha Hurst, a research and teacher, by 3,911 to 3,906 votes. Should the race end in a tie, state law would require that it be decided by random draw. 

Measure N, Santee's ballot measure to give residents a vote on large housing developments, is now passing by 15,697 to 14,783 votes, likely too great a margin to shift given the relatively small number of ballots likely left to count in this race.

In the Cajon Valley Union School District, incumbent trustee Karen Clark-Mejia is maintainin a lead over Monica Hinton by a mere 202 votes, with 5,598 or Mejia and 5,396 for Hinton, 51.5% to 48.5%. Though the margin has slipped somewhat since Election Night, Mejia is likely to retain her seat as the number of votes left to count dwindles.

 


Error message

Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.