Riverside's open Ward 2 City Council race narrowed again Friday, Nov. 6, as Riverside County kept counting ballots — while challenger Jamie Walden overtook Alvord Unified School District Trustee Norma O. Berrellez in the Trustee Area 4 race.
Gracie Torres led Aram Ayra 50.8% to 49.2% as of the county's 5:07 p.m. Friday report, a lead of 1.5 percentage points that is her smallest since polls closed Tuesday. In Alvord, Walden led Berrellez 51.2% to 48.8% — a 2.5-point lead after trailing in every count through Wednesday.
None of the races has been decided, and the county estimated it still had hundreds of thousands of ballots left to count countywide as of Friday evening.
In Ward 4, Councilmember Chuck Conder held an 8-point lead over challenger Rich Vandenberg, who wrote Thursday on Facebook that the results so far “aren’t what we had hoped for.” Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) Trustee Noemi Hernandez Alexander kept a double-digit lead in Trustee Area 1.
Alvord: A lead changes hands
Berrellez led in all nine county reports from election night through Wednesday, but never by more than 0.8 percentage points. On Wednesday evening, the gap was 974 votes to 969.
Thursday's 5:02 p.m. report put Walden ahead, 51.3% to 48.7%. In the ballots added that day, Walden won both kinds — 126 in-person votes to Berrellez's 76, and 86 mail votes to Berrellez's 69.
Friday's report added only mail ballots, which split almost evenly: 165 for Walden and 162 for Berrellez. Walden now has 1,346 votes to Berrellez's 1,281.
The race is still open. Votes counted so far equal 22.7% of the area's registered voters, and Walden's 2.5-point lead is larger than the late movement in only eight of the 19 past school board races in a Raincross Gazette analysis of county results.
Ward 2: Torres' lead keeps shrinking
Torres has led in every county report, but her margin has narrowed each day since Tuesday — from 4.1 percentage points in the first results to 3.5 on Wednesday, 2.2 on Thursday and 1.5 on Friday. She now has 2,861 votes to Ayra's 2,774.
Ayra has won more of the mail ballots counted in each of the last two reports. Thursday's count added 174 mail votes for Ayra and 121 for Torres. Friday's — the largest batch yet in the race — added 265 votes for Ayra and 237 for Torres, nearly all of them mail ballots.
The seat is open. Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes is running for the California State Assembly in District 58. Torres and Ayra were the top two finishers in June's primary, when Torres led 38% to 35.7%.
Votes counted so far equal 26.7% of Ward 2's registered voters.
Both council races are being run under ward lines the city adopted on June 13, 2023, after the 2020 census. June's primary was the first election held under them, so past results in either ward come from different territory.
Ward 4: Conder holds near 8 points
Conder had 5,495 votes to Vandenberg's 4,682 on Friday, a lead of 8 percentage points. His margin grew from 5.9 points in the first results Tuesday to 7.3 on Wednesday and 8.2 on Thursday, then slipped slightly Friday.
“While there are still votes to be counted, the results so far aren’t what we had hoped for,” Vandenberg wrote Thursday on Facebook. The post thanked supporters, family and campaign staff.
“Whatever the final outcome, I have no regrets,” Vandenberg wrote. “I’m proud of the campaign we ran, grateful for the opportunity, and thankful to everyone who was part of this journey.”
Conder, who is seeking a third term, wrote Thursday on Facebook that he was leading with more than 53% of the vote. “Should this lead hold, as I hope it will, I will be elected to a third term on the City Council,” he wrote.
In a Friday evening post, Conder noted that his percentage lead “dipped slightly today” but said “the numerical vote difference did increase.” Friday’s count added 645 votes for Conder and 567 for Vandenberg.
That lead is larger than the late movement in any of the five past city runoffs in the Gazette's analysis.
Votes counted so far equal 32.6% of Ward 4's registered voters.
RUSD Trustee Area 1
Hernandez Alexander had 51.8% of the vote Friday to Duffy Atkinson's 39.1% and Jinane Annous' 9%. Her lead of 12.7 percentage points has stayed between 12.5 and 13.1 points in every report since Tuesday.
She remains just above the 50% mark. Votes counted so far equal 29.7% of the area's registered voters, and the race is not settled.
What's left to count
The Riverside County Registrar of Voters estimated Friday evening that 374,000 Vote-by-Mail ballots and 11,000 Conditional Voter Registration (CVR) ballots remain to be counted. That estimate covers all of Riverside County, not just the city. The next estimate is due by 6 p.m. Saturday.
In the county's six past even-year November general elections, final vote totals ended up between 1.08 and 2.54 times the count at this point in the week. Of 21 past races in those elections still being counted at this stage, the gap between the top two candidates widened by the final count in 17, narrowed in four and flipped in two.
Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day will be counted if they arrive by Tuesday, Nov. 10, and counties must finish counting nearly all ballots by Nov. 16. Voters have until Nov. 25 to fix signature problems on mail ballots, and the county must certify results by Dec. 3.
