State Senate contests still undecided, but numbers starting
to favor Tony Strickland.
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In one of the closest contests in recent election history, new
results indicate that Tony Strickland has now moved ahead of Hannah-Beth
Jackson in the race for the 19th District State Senate seat. Included in the
District are portions of Santa Clarita, Santa Barbara
and Ventura.
At the close of election night, only 108 votes separated
Hannah-Beth Jackson from Tony Strickland. Now, 9 days later, Strickland holds a
1,560 vote lead.
The change can be attributed to the massive number of vote-by-mail
ballots and provisional ballots that are still being counted. Currently, Jackson
has racked up 186,071 votes as compared to Strickland’s 187,631.
While the Strickland campaign has not declared an end to the
race, they are predicting an advantage.
They say that Santa Barbara
has finished their final count of mail-in ballots. Of the three counties, Santa
Barbara was the only one to favor Jackson.
Over 42,000 mail-in ballots still have to be counted in Ventura
and Los Angeles Counties,
both of which have favored Tony Strickland so far.
This could point to the final stretch of this campaign, as Jackson
may not have enough votes in those counties to close the 1,560 vote gap.
If the race remains close, the only hope for Jackson will be
the provisional ballots, of which 6,800 remain uncounted in Santa Barbara
County, 10,000 in Ventura County, and 2,000 in Los Angeles County. Although the
Strickland campaign is predicting that those numbers will shrink, as a high
percentage of provisional ballots tend to be disqualified due to voter error.
