Incumbent Carol Mills' bid for re-election to the Fresno Unified School District's board of trustees took a serious blow Friday when her lead over challenger Natalie Clark was cut by more than half, the Fresno County Elections Office reported.
Mills had a 132-vote lead as of 3:20 p.m. Friday, election officials said.
After Tuesday's election, Mills held a 294-vote lead over Clark.
The elections office also announced Friday that President-elect Obama has taken over the Fresno County lead from Republican John McCain.
Initial returns showed McCain with a slim, 26-vote lead in Fresno County. Now, Obama is up by 360 votes.
In Tulare, Kings, Madera and Mariposa counties, McCain still leads by more than 10 percentage points. Obama is leading in Merced County.
Since the election, officials have been sorting through 40,000 to 50,000 ballots that still haven't been counted, Fresno County Clerk Victor Salazar said. The votes represent absentee ballots and provisional ballots that were given to voters at the polls.
With Friday's update, the Fresno County turnout increased from 50.76% to 54.51% and will continue to climb as more ballots are counted.
In the past three days, 14,344 of these types of ballots have been counted, the elections office reported. That means many more remain and the outcome of a few races remains in question.
Mills, a lawyer first elected to the school board in 2004, said she was optimistic that her lead would hold up.
"Remember, I only have to win by one vote," she said.
Clark, a PG&E project manager, said she also remains optimistic.
Mills was backed by several unions, including the Fresno Teachers Association. Clark has the support of local business, educational and political leaders.
Salazar said the next vote total update will be Wednesday.
Tulare County reported Friday that turnout has increased from 40% on Election Day to 56%. Kings and Madera did not update their totals on Friday.
In other races that remain undecided:
Republican Danny Gilmore, a retired highway patrol officer from Hanford, continues to hold a slight lead over Democrat Fran Florez, mother of state Sen. Dean Florez, in the 30th Assembly District race.
Gilmore has 51.7% of the vote, with Florez at 48.3%, according to the Secretary of State's Web site. Those percentages are unchanged from earlier this week.
On Election Day, Gilmore's lead was larger. He held 56% of the vote to Florez's 44%.
In the Central Unified school district battle between incumbent Terry Cox and her nearest challenger, Bradley Black, Cox's lead of 332 votes dropped slightly, to 327.
In the other contested Central Unified race, challenger Duane Peverill's narrow lead over incumbent Mike Yada grew slightly, from 372 votes to 467. Peverill is a retired teacher and union leader.
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