Two super-charged Fresno County supervisor races top 2024 local election ballot | Opinion
Enjoy the rest of December. Because as soon as we get through celebrating the holidays, election season 2024 will be in full swing.
Talk about the opposite of good cheer. If you’re someone who’s already annoyed by campaign signs cluttering our streets and local politicians giving quasi-stump speeches from the dais (raises hand), just wait a few weeks.
The verbiage promises to be unrelenting.
Last Friday was the filing deadline for local offices that will be contested in the March 5 primary, including Fresno mayor, three seats on the Fresno City Council and three seats on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. If no candidate in each race gets a majority of votes, the top two advance to the November general election.
Based on the list of qualified candidates published by Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters James Kus, those seven local races can be cleaved into two groups: three that will surely be hotly contested and four that almost assuredly won’t be.
For the sake of everyone’s attention spans, let’s start with the competitive group: District 2 and District 3 on the Fresno County Board of Supes and District 6 on the Fresno City Council.
The two county supervisor races are nearly mirror images of each other in that the incumbents are facing established opponents from the same political party.
In District 2, which encompasses most of north Fresno and a sliver of Clovis, Supervisor Steve Brandau must fend off Fresno City Councilmember Garry Bredefeld, a fellow Republican, as well as Fresno County Assessor-Recorder Paul Dictos, a registered Democrat. Also on the ballot are Dion Bourdase, a county social worker from Clovis and Bryce Herrera, a Fresno business owner.
Made up of 38.0% registered Republicans and 35.4% Democrats, District 2 is the most purple district in the county. So it’ll be interesting to see if there are enough GOP votes for the two biggest names (Brandau and Bredefeld) to advance or whether Dictos, who will also enjoy some name recognition, can garner enough Democratic support.
Equally tough to forecast is the three-sided battle of Latino Democrats in District 3 to represent south Fresno between Supervisor Sal Quintero and Fresno City Councilmembers Miguel Arias and Luis Chavez.
Although the 75-year-old Quintero is three decades older than both his opponents, they more or less share the same base of support and agree on many issues. But not all of them. Quintero clearly drew a line between himself and Arias and Chavez on the renaming of Cesar Chavez Boulevard. That was purposeful.
Also on the ballot is Fresno teacher EJ Hinojosa, who made a good impression during public comment of a recent Board meeting but is a longshot in this loaded field.
Newbies vie for council
The third competitive race is between four first-timer candidates vying to replace the termed-out Bredefeld representing northeast Fresno on city council. They are Roger Bonakdar, an attorney; Molly Fagundes-Johnston, a nonprofit advisor; Raj Sodhi-Layne, a banker and former city planning commissioner; and Nick Richardson, a veteran and businessman.
Fagundes-Johnston, Sodhi-Layne and Richardson are Republicans. Bonakdar, who has the early lead in fundraising, is registered No Party Preference.
Who are the favorites in this field of political newbies? At this point, any answer is little more than guess work.
The same cannot be said about the remaining four local races on the March 2024 ballot. While that will come across as a slight to the underdogs, it isn’t intended to be one. I respect anyone with the guts to run for political office. But I also exist in reality.
Saying that, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer is a virtual lock for reelection to a second term. Nonetheless, Dyer has drawn two opponents: Jim Barr, a soon-to-be retired teacher with two previous unsuccessful runs for Fresno Unified school board, and first-time candidate Samantha Dussell.
Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig, a Republican who opted not to run for Kevin McCarthy’s soon-to-be-vacated House seat, is seeking a third term representing GOP-heavy District 5. Magsig’s lone opponent is Jennifer Cruz, a Democrat and LBGTQ+ activist who recently gave Brandau an earful over his children’s library book ban.
Two Fresno City Council seats will also be settled in March. In District 2 representing northwest Fresno, incumbent Mike Karbassi has one challenger in fellow Democrat Matthew Gillian. And in District 2 representing east central Fresno, Tyler Maxwell is running unopposed for a second term.
We now return you to your holiday preparations and celebrations. Come January, Christmas trees and New Year’s Eve party hats are replaced by campaign mailers and political ads.
In other words, get your fill of joy while you can.
