On Tuesday night, as expected by most, Kevin Johnson won his reelection campaign, securing a second term as Mayor of Sacramento. With 100% of precincts reporting, Johnson took 26,294 votes, with his three opponents only gaining 18,723 combined votes. All told, there were 45,017 votes cast in the Sacramento Mayoral race, remarkably much less than the 159,636 votes cast in the 2008 race when Heather Fargo lost her bid for a third term.
Surprises abound in the City Council races throughout the city, as many candidates who seemed to carry serious weight in the days leading up to June 5th failed to capture the attention of the voters. In District 2, Rob Kerth and Allen Warren will face off in a November run-off, but the shocker in the race was Misty Yaj taking 10.4% of the vote for a impressive third place finish.
In District 4, heavily favored Phyllis Newton failed to land in either one of the top-two spots, ending her campaign much earlier than many had assumed. Steve Hansen and Joe Yee finished with a difference of less-than 100 votes and will continue on forward to the Fall.
District 6 was the most lop-sided race of the night, with sitting-councilmember Kevin McCarty obliterating his only challenger, Mitch Netto by a huge margin. While the Netto campaign tried to make McCarty’s widely rumored 2014 Assembly run an issue in the race, voters appeared to be unphased by that criticism and gave McCarty a third term in his seat.
Lastly, in District 8, Bonnie Pannell held on to her seat after an aggressive campaign by a Johnson-backed Betty Williams. Early on in the night, television stations were mistakenly declaring Williams the winner, only to correct the results at around 8:30 and give Pannell a lead she would go on and hold for the rest of the night. Pannell has said in prior statements that this would be her last term on the council, and that she wants to finish several key projects in District 8 before moving on.
Check out sacramentocurrent.com for interviews with several of the candidates, winners, and losers from last night post-election events by clicking here.
