The 2024 results must still be signed off by the County Board of Supervisors and the California Secretary of State, and recount requests can still be submitted through 5 p.m. Dec. 8. (A recount cost is the requestor’s responsibility.)

Here are some at-a-glance stats from the 2024 certified results:

• A total of 959,098 ballots were processed and counted with 69.89% of eligible Riverside County voters turning out.
• Riverside County was evenly split on its choice for president. Republican Donald Trump received 463,677 votes, or 49.30%, while Democrat Kamala D. Harris garnered 451,782 votes, or 48.04%. Of the other candidates on the ballot, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (AIP) received the most votes in Riverside County with 11,160, or 1.19%.
• Though former Major League Baseball star Steve Garvey (R) lost his U.S. Senate bid to Democrat Adam Schiff in the statewide contest, the ex-first baseman narrowly beat the veteran politician in Riverside County by just over 3 percentage points.
• In the six U.S. House races in Riverside County, county voters chose a Republican over a Democrat in four of the contests.
• Likewise, in Riverside County’s six state Assembly races, voters chose a Republican in four of the contests.
• In the two state Senate races, it was a different story: Riverside County voters chose Democrats.

See Riverside County’s full Nov. 5, 2024, Presidential General Election results here.

Riverside County’s 2024 Presidential General Election results were not so different from the 2020 final tallies, though the race for the White House shows a contrast:

• A total of 1,016,896 ballots were processed and counted in 2020, with 81.80% of eligible Riverside County voters turning out.
• When Joe Biden ran against Trump four years ago, Biden garnered 528,340 votes in Riverside County compared to Trump’s 449,144.
• In 2020, there were four U.S. House races to be decided in Riverside County, with local voters choosing Democrats in two of the contests and Republicans in the others.
• The two state Senate races on the ballot in 2020 were also evenly split in Riverside County, with local voters picking a Democrat in one and a Republican in the other.
• In Riverside County, seven state assembly races were voted on in 2020. County voters chose Democrats in three of the contests and Republicans in three others. In the seventh race, county voters chose a “No Party Preference” candidate over a Republican.

See Riverside County’s full Nov. 3, 2020, Presidential General Election results here.

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A 600-vote lead is big enough for Leticia Castillo to declare victory in what would be an upset in the race for a state Assembly seat representing part of the Inland Empire.

“To the voters, thank you for placing your faith and trust in me,” Castillo, a Republican, said in a statement issued Tuesday night, Nov. 26. “I will work tirelessly in Sacramento to fight for the People, striving to improve the lives of my constituents and all Californians.”

Castillo’s opponent, Democrat Clarissa Cervantes, isn’t ready to concede.

“There are still well over a thousand votes likely left in this race, and we are committed to ensuring every single vote is counted,” Cervantes said via text. It’s not clear where she’s getting that figure.

Cervantes said her supporters have helped “hundreds” of voters correct problems with their ballots that prevented them from being counted.

“However, the Riverside County Registrar of Voters appears to be waiting until the last minute to review most of these cures, risking the disenfranchisement of voters whose signature cure forms are deemed to still not match their voter registration card signature enough,” she said.

“We urge the Registrar to act swiftly and fairly to ensure that every cured ballot is reviewed thoroughly and every voter’s voice is heard. This election is too important to let bureaucracy stand in the way of democracy.”

The registrar’s office did not immediately respond Wednesday, Nov. 27, to a request for comment.

Going into Wednesday, Castillo led Cervantes by 600 votes — 50.2% to 49.8% — out of more than 155,000 ballots counted in California’s 58th Assembly District, according to online results posted by the California Secretary of State.

According to Castillo, just 500 ballots remain to be counted in the district. It’s not clear how her campaign arrived at that figure, but in a Wednesday email Castillo said her campaign declared victory based on registrar’s data and its analysis of the estimated unprocessed ballots in both Inland counties.

The 58th — Jurupa Valley, Grand Terrace and parts of Corona, Eastvale and Riverside — is currently represented by Cervantes’ sister, Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, who is moving to the legislature’s upper chamber after winning a state Senate seat in the Tuesday, Nov. 5, election.

The plan was for Clarissa Cervantes, a Riverside city councilmember, to take her sister’s place in the Assembly. The 58th is friendly ground for Democrats, who make up 43% of the district’s registered voters compared to 28% for Republicans.

Clarissa Cervantes’ road to Sacramento got bumpy in 2023, when she pleaded guilty to drunk driving. It was her second DUI conviction in less than 10 years, and it became fodder for attacks against her in a primary featuring fellow Democrat and Riverside City Councilmember Ronaldo Fierro.

Despite that, Cervantes beat Fierro in the March primary and raised close to $1 million for her campaign, compared to roughly $81,000 that Castillo took in for her Assembly bid.

In her email, Castillo said her campaign is aware of the “significant voter registration gap between Democrats and Republicans” in the district.

“Our victory over the well-funded, well-supported, and well-known Clarissa Cervantes is a testament to the grace of God, the support of my family, the strategy and hard work of my team, and the will of Californians who have had enough of policies that have been detrimental to the daily lives of individuals, families, and businesses,” Castillo wrote.

If Castillo wins, two of the three assemblymembers representing the city of Riverside and its plurality of Democratic voters will be Republicans. The city is divided between the 58th, 60th (Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley) and 63rd (Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Corona) districts.

Castillo, a marriage and family therapist and Corona native, has consistently held a lead of at least several hundred votes in the days following the general election.

California takes weeks to count votes due to the large volume of mail-in ballots, which must be counted as long as they’re postmarked on or before Election Day and arrive no later than a week after Election Day.

Elections officials in Riverside and San Bernardino counties said they expect to wrap up vote-counting by Tuesday, Dec. 3.

The post Leticia Castillo declares victory in race for Inland Empire Assembly seat appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

You won’t be surprised to hear that Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in the Inland Empire. But Harris performed better here than you might have predicted.

In Riverside County, Harris had 48% of the vote as of Friday morning. In San Bernardino County, she had 46%. Sure, she lost, but in Kern County, she polled only 38%.

More predictable is how Steve Garvey fared versus Adam Schiff. If Garvey were representing the IE instead of the entire state, he’d be the new senator, and by a comfortable margin: He got 54% in San Bernardino County and 52% in Riverside County. Schiff won the state with 57%.

Now that’s the IE we know and love (or shake our head at).

Welcome to my post-election roundup. The above aside, the idea is to offer a few thoughts on local outcomes or trends, some of which might pass with little notice otherwise.

For starters, out in Needles, voters have — OK, just kidding. Let’s stick a bit closer to home. And we’ll begin with an unusual one.

In Menifee, the District 3 race’s ballot had a rarity, an official write-in candidate. Jay Sno-Fly as of Thursday had collected, ah, six votes. Sadly, Sno-Fly was no shoo-in.

More seriously, in many cities, council incumbents were returned without opposition, such as in Corona (Tony Daddario, Tom Richins), Chino Hills (Cynthia Moran) and Upland (Shannan Maust, Bill Velto). Or without breaking a sweat, such as in Claremont (Corey Calaycay, Sal Medina) and Ontario (Debra Porada).

Some contested races weren’t remotely close. Longtime Chino Mayor Eunice Ulloa creamed Paul Rodriguez, 72% to 28%, running over him like a tractor. In Rancho Cucamonga, Lynne Kennedy did even better, collecting 74% against Steven Lacey.

A few incumbents might have lost if not for a lucky break: having two challengers, not one. Again in Rancho Cucamonga, Ashley Stickler won with 41%, topping Luis Cetina and Erick Jimenez. This means 59% effectively voted against Stickler, but she won anyway.

Same in Fontana, where council outlier Jesse Sandoval, who often casts protest votes, won with 42% support, with two opponents splitting the anti-Sandoval vote.

Sometimes a candidate almost seems like an incumbent, even if they technically aren’t.

In Temecula, Matt Rahn had given up his council seat in 2022 to run unsuccessfully for state Assembly. He was back on the ballot Tuesday for his old council seat and won handily. It’ll be as if he never left.

In Pomona, John Nolte was trounced by Debra Martin, another familiar name who’d previously served a single term on the council from 2012-2016.

In San Bernardino, city of contrasts, two candidates who had once been incumbents both lost.

Henry Nickel, who was booted from his council seat in 2020, sought to return to the 5th Ward but lost to Kim Knaus. Jim Penman, who had been the elected city attorney until 2013, lost the 7th Ward race to Treasure Ortiz.

Name recognition can help but can do only so much.

Occasionally a city election is almost a free-for-all. In Norco, six candidates sought three seats, one of them open.

Robin Grundmeyer keeps her seat as the top vote-getter. Two newcomers, Greg Bowen and Fia Sullivan, will fill the other two slots. The other incumbent, Kathleen Aleman, who was opposed by most of the establishment and was passed over twice to be rotated into the mayor’s seat, finished fourth. Politics is a rough business.

The conservative tilt among some school boards remained or intensified. In Chino Valley Unified, the board’s lone dissenter, Don Bridge, opted not to run again after being on the losing end of dozens of 4-1 votes, and who could blame him? With the reelection of Andrew Cruz and James Na, and the election of John Cervantes, the board may go 5-0 to the right.

A few local ballot measures caught my attention.

In Riverside, voters approved Measure L, which establishes a city-selected government watchdog. We’ll have to keep an eye on that.

In Pomona, Measure Y, which was put on the ballot by nonprofits, would gradually shift an additional 10% of the city budget toward children. And away from what, exactly? Some 72% of the budget goes to public safety. This strikes me as a “defund the police” measure in disguise.

A one-cent sales tax appears headed for approval in Fontana, where Measure T was getting 52% support, and in Yucaipa, where Measure S had 60%. Each would put millions of dollars a year into city coffers.

Faced with an identical tax, Upland said: “Not so fast.” Measure N got clobbered, mustering only 35% support. City Hall would have gained $20 million a year to hire cops and pave the city’s notoriously potholed streets.

Uplanders, it seems, prefer to save their pennies, then give them directly to criminals and tire centers.

Lastly, if you’re among those who wonder if your vote matters, check out these two examples to the contrary.

In the Chino Valley Independent Fire District, incumbent John DeMonaco was at war with the firefighters union, which backed Andrew Romaine, a retired firefighter, with contributions the Chino Valley Champion reported as topping $77,000.

That’s a veritable firehose of cash. Also, it’s a lot of lettuce for Romaine.

Anyway, Romaine was ahead Wednesday by 35 votes, until things flip-flopped Thursday and DeMonaco was on top by four votes. His lead, such as it was, widened Friday to six votes.

Then consider the City Council in Montclair (pop. 36,000).

For the second of two seats on the ballot, incumbent Tenice Johnson and candidate Xavier Mendez on Wednesday were tied at 1,703 votes apiece. What were the odds? That shifted Thursday when Mendez inched ahead by eight votes, a lead cut to six votes on Friday.

Montclair’s Ben Lopez, meanwhile, had 2,416 votes as of late Friday. Lopez, the council’s pariah, who has been censured for misconduct and has cost City Hall more than $700,000 in legal payouts, is the top vote-getter? His showing must be satisfying for him, if not so much for his colleagues.

The post 2024 Election: A look at notable results around the Inland Empire appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

In the race to register voters before what folks are apocalyptically calling THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF ALL TIME, which we think happens every four years, we are disappointed to report that California is trailing the numbers it hit back in 2020 (the last most important election of all time).

Eighty-five percent of the Golden State’s eligible voters were registered by September 2020.

On October 10th, only 83% are.

Granted, there are more actual voters registered now than back then (22.3 million vs. 21.2 million), but there are also nearly 2 million more eligible voters.

Two million eligible, unregistered voters! That’s more than the entire population of a dozen states! You have no right to complain if you do not vote. It’s one of the few civic duties asked of us, and it’s a lot easier than jury duty or getting drafted.

Los Angeles County is bucking the slowpoke trend and putting the rest of SoCal to shame: There, 85.7% of eligible voters are already registered (5.7 million).

Orange County hit the state average, with 83% of eligible folks registered (1.8 million people).

Riverside is trailing a bit, with 82% of eligible folks registered (1.3 million); as is San Bernardino, with just 81% registered (1.2 million).

You can’t vote, people, vote, if you don’t register, people, register!

There’s still time. In California, registrations must be postmarked or submitted electronically no later than 15 days before Election Day, Nov. 5. That makes the deadline for registering Oct. 21, according to the Secretary of State.

Some props are due, though, to the SoCal counties, which have seen the largest increases in registration statewide since September 2020.

Riverside is tops, registering an additional 179,336 voters.

Orange is next, with an additional 140,571; then San Bernardino, with 122,454; San Diego, with 68,960; and Los Angeles, with 64,997.

What party are these registered voters affiliated with, you’re wondering? Statewide, 46% are Democrats; 25% are Republican; and 23% have no party preference.

It’s different, however, in the counties:

In progressive Los Angeles County, 52.4% are Democrats, 18% are Republicans, and 23% have no party preference.

Orange County still has strong conservative leanings, despite its new more progressive majority that backed Democrats in the last two presidential elections: 37% are Democrats, 34% are Republicans, and 23% have no party preference.

The Inland Empire counties, with a reputation for being more conservative than O.C., actually have more registered Democrats than O.C. In Riverside County, 39.6% are Democrats, 32% are Republicans and 20% have no party preference; while in San Bernardino, 40% are Democrats, 30% are Republicans and 21% have no party preference.

This is the most important election EVER!  And there are almost three weeks to register. Details on how to do that are at www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration. Get on it, people! This is THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF ALL TIME!

At least until next time.

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