Fresno County front-runners maintain leads in new election report. Few runoffs likely
Fresno area incumbents held their leads as more ballots were processed throughout the week following the June primary election on Tuesday.
Other candidates vying for open seats, such as Fresno County Sheriff and Fresno City Council District 1, also held their leads.
The Fresno County Elections Office posted the new numbers late Friday afternoon and estimated more than 20,000 ballots were left to count. Voter turnout countywide was reported just below 20% on Friday afternoon with 97,487 ballots cast. Earlier this week, Fresno County Registrar of Voters James Kus estimated voter turnout might go up to 25% by the certification of the election results on July 7.
John Zanoni’s lead over opponent Mark Salazar grew slightly in the race for Fresno County Sheriff. Friday’s updated results showed Zanoni received 58% of the votes to Salazar’s 41.5%.
“We feel very confident that I will be elected sheriff,” Zanoni said Friday evening. “I just want to thank the voters of Fresno County for having the faith in me, and the confidence in me, to vote for me and elect me to this position. As soon as the election’s official, we’re planning on getting to work and hitting the ground running, and making sure we provide public safety to every resident of Fresno County.”
When asked if he is now declaring victory, Zanoni added, “We are confident that we will be declaring victory. But again, just to be sure, we’re going to wait until Wednesday, when the next batch of votes is counted. … Statistically, it seems highly probable that we will be victorious and make it official on Wednesday.”
Salazar, a deputy chief for Fresno Police Department, shared a brief statement via text on Friday evening, saying that “the results reinforce the pride I have in the team for campaigning in a 90-day campaign.”
Zanoni, currently assistant sheriff, is poised to replace retiring Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims, effective January 2023.
Fresno County Supervisor Ernest “Buddy” Mendes maintained his lead over challengers Jose Ramirez and Danny Parra. Mendes received 52.7% of the votes.
Fresno City Council incumbents Miguel Arias, Luis Chavez and Nelson Esparza, all Democrats, also held their majority leads over their challengers. All three incumbents felt comfortable with their leads Tuesday night, saying the wide margins signified voters were happy with the current council’s direction.
In the District 3 race, Arias received 61.7% of the votes against two challengers. Chavez’s lead in the District 5 race grew about 1% with the new results, to 55.9% of the votes. Esparza maintained his 66% tally over two challengers in the District 7 race.
Annalisa Perea’s lead in the District 1 Fresno City Council race grew by about 1% over her three opponents. Perea declared victory Wednesday, saying she looked forward to a six-month transition period to get up to speed on district infrastructure projects underway.
Because many of the candidates so far received more than 50% of votes, there likely will be few runoffs in the November general election.
The Fresno County Elections Office will report new results after additional ballots are processed on June 15.
Bee reporter Carmen Kohlruss contributed to this story.