Voters get final say today in City Council races, local ballot measures, state and federal contests, more

With flyers mailed, forums held, and endorsements secured, candidates for multiple spots on the Palm Springs City Council – and two current councilmembers seeking higher office – will now wait nervously for you to act: It’s Election Day in Palm Springs and across America.

Two seats on the city’s top governing body are being contested – in districts 4 and 5 — although one district has only a single candidate. In addition, both councilmembers Christy Holstege and Lisa Middleton, who currently occupy the District 4 and 5 seats, are hoping to head to Sacramento and a place in the State Legislature. Holstege is running to represent Assembly District 47 and Middleton is running to represent Senate District 19.

The Palm Springs District 4 candidates – Joe Jackson, David Rios, Ernest Ceceña, Anna Nevenic, and Naomi Soto – discussed affordable housing, public safety, economic development, and other pressing concerns during a two-hour forum held at Demuth Community Center in early October. You can read what they had to say here.

David Ready, a former Palm Springs city manager, was also at the forum. He will be on the ballot, but has no opponent in District 5.

City voters are also being asked to remove the 2037 sunset date on a 1% sales tax increase originally approved in 2011 — Measure J. They will also decide whether to eventually sell the city’s hospital — Desert Regional Medical Center — to Tenet Healthcare. Seats on the Desert Healthcare and Desert Community College boards of directors are also being decided, as is the fate of a Palm Springs Unified School District bond.

Of course, local races and measures aren’t the only thing on the ballot. There are multiple county, state, and federal decisions that need to be made, including state ballot initiatives on marriage, housing, the minimum wage, and what could be an extremely tight contest to represent the area in the US House of Representatives between incumbent Republican Rep. Ken Calvert and Democratic challenger Will Rollins.

As of the latest count on Monday, 63% of the 29,300 ballots mailed out in the city have been returned. That’s higher than at the same time in both the 2022 and 2020 General Election, according to Political Data Intelligence. Riverside County data shows 35% of the 1.4 million ballots mailed out have been returned.

If you didn’t drop your ballot in a mailbox or collection box in the past few weeks, you are more than welcome to drop it off at one of two drop boxes in the city or cast your vote at one of three voting centers from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. this evening.

Following is some helpful information that you may need as you take part in the process today:

• Need to know what district you live in, and therefore whether you have a City Council race to vote on? You can look that up here.
  
  
• You can find all the ballot drop-off and voting center locations here.
  
  
• You can check your registration and learn what your ballot will look like using this site.

While the official certification in Riverside County doesn’t happen until later this month, we should have a fairly accurate picture of how the local races will shape up by late this evening. We’ll be tracking it all live and will tell you what we know when we know it.

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