No change in results for local races, ballot measures of interest as latest vote counts released

Riverside County released its latest vote count Wednesday evening, showing very little change in the race for the District 4 seat on the Palm Springs City Council. The same goes for state and federal elections of interest in the city as those results also continue to be tabulated.

As of Wednesday evening’s vote tally, Naomi Soto, former chair of the city’s Measure J Oversight Commission, has 1,254 votes to Joe Jackson’s 1,129, maintaining her 30% to 27% lead. David Rios remains in third with 22% of the vote between the five candidates for the seat.

Soto’s lead has been increasing since votes first began to be announced Tuesday evening. She led by 70 votes after the initial vote count, and is 125 votes ahead currently.

David Ready, a former city manager, won the District 5 race after running unopposed.

An estimated 315,000 vote-by-mail and 35,000 conditional voter registration ballots still must be processed by Riverside County elections officials. It is unknown how many might be from Palm Springs. The county will continue releasing vote counts each evening until all ballots have been processed.

In contests involving two current City Council members seeking higher office, the latest vote count shows:

• Christy Holstege and incumbent Assemblymember Greg Wallis in a 50-50 tie in a rematch for the State Assembly District 47 seat. As of 5:30 p.m., Holstege has received 80,590 votes to Wallis’s 79,882. In 2022, Wallis won the seat by only 85 votes.
  
  
• In the race for the newly-created State Senate District 19 seat, Lisa Middleton trails State Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, 53% to 47%. Bogh has 136,705 votes compared to Middleton’s 119,917.

In other results, city voters overwhelmingly approved removing the 2037 sunset date on a 1% sales tax increase originally approved in 2011 — Measure J — 72% to 28%. Coachella Valley voters also approved Measure AA, 72% to 28%. That measure asked them to decide whether a new lease should be signed that would eventually see the city’s hospital — Desert Regional Medical Center — sell to Tenet Healthcare.

Seats on the Desert Healthcare District and Desert Community College District boards of directors were also on the ballot, as was the fate of a Palm Springs Unified School District bond.

In those contests, the school bond passed, 74% to 26%; Ron Oden was victorious in his effort to retain the seat that represents Palm Springs on the college board of directors; and Greg Rodriguez beat two opponents in an effort to win the seat on the Healthcare District Board in the zone that serves Palm Springs.

In a contest with national implications, Democrat Will Rollins is behind incumbent GOP Rep. Ken Calvert for a seat in the US House of Representatives. With 76% of the vote counted as of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Rollins has 115,695 votes (49%) to Calvert’s 122,437 (51%). The District 41 race is a rematch of their 2022 contest.

The latest Riverside County data shows roughly 45% voter turnout. Political Data Inc. reported that 65% of the 29,300 ballots mailed out in the city were returned — a higher number than both the 2022 and 2020 General Elections.

The county has 30 days to certify election results and on Dec. 6 must send one complete copy of the general election returns to the California Secretary of State in an electronic format. State results need to be certified by Dec. 13.

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Editor’s note: To track all the city races (and those throughout the county), head to this website. You can follow the State Assembly District 47 race here and the Senate District 19 race here.

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