Election morning at the Shasta County Registrar of Voters
With less than three weeks to go before the state’s Dec. 5 deadline for election certification, the Shasta County Elections Office has counted more than half the votes that were cast, 46,111 ballots, with 42,996 unprocessed ballots left to be counted. If those numbers hold, 89,107 of Shasta County’s 111,191 registered voters will have voted in the Nov. 5 presidential election, a turnout rate of 77 percent.
That’s slightly less than the 85 percent who turned out to vote in the 2020 presidential election, but still a respectable number. Unfortunately, those voters may have to wait the entire three weeks for official local results as Registrar Tom Toller and staff deal with a ballot overspray setback that has required the duplication of a large percentage of the ballots cast. According to the elections office, of the 42,996 ballots left to count, 20,526 are so-called B ballots with the overspray issue and must be duplicated before they can be counted.
Most of the remaining ballots to be counted are vote by mail ballots. In past elections, mail-in ballots could be counted on to trend moderate-to-liberal but 2024 may prove to be the exception that breaks the rule, if president-elect Donald Trump’s red wave is any indication.
With that in mind here’s a look at how some of the more important local races are trending. In most of them, it’s mathematically impossible to declare a winner with as much as half the vote outstanding.
The following election results were officially released Tuesday Nov. 12 at 6:31 p.m. The next elections update is expected on Friday, Nov. 15, 7 p.m.
Shasta County District 3 Supervisor
Candidate Corkey Harmon and Shasta County District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert.
When the initial election results Nov. 6 showed local developer Corkey Harmon leading incumbent Shasta County District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert 60 percent to 40 percent, it seemed like the race might be over. Twenty points is a seemingly insurmountable lead.
But when the Friday, Nov. 8 numbers were released, Rickert clawed back three percentage points, drawing within 14 percentage points of Harmon, who led 57 percent to 43 percent. With the Tuesday May 12 election update, Rickert shaved off another two points, drawing to within 10 percentage points of Harmon, who now leads her 55 percent to 45 percent, 4,850 votes to 3,904, a lead of 946 votes.
So far, 8,754 votes have been counted in District 3. Competitive supervisor races in Shasta County can draw almost twice that amount, 17,000 voters. If half the total vote remains to be counted in District 3, and vote by mail ballots favor Rickert, it’s possible she might retain her seat, though just by the skin of her teeth.
Redding City Council, Two Full Term Seats
Dr. Paul Dhanuka.
Mike Littau
Joshua Johnson
The third time appears to be the charm for Dr. Paul Dhanuka, who leads his four fellow candidates in the race to fill two long term Redding City Council seats with 40 percent of the vote. It seems we’re going to see Dr. Dhanuka’s “common-sense plan that empowers police with the authority and resources to combat crime, makes it easier for businesses and jobs to stay local, lowers your local taxes and fees, and makes housing more affordable” put into action.
He also plans to champion a local medical school and residential facility for mental health and drug rehabilitation. He’s not kidding. His wife, Dr. Promila Dhanuka, an accomplished oncologist, was pitching their mental health and drug rehabilitation proposal at the board of supervisors special meeting on opioid lawsuit funding Tuesday.
In the race for the second long term Redding City Council seat, Mike Littau continues to lead Joshua Johnson 21 percent to 18 percent with 30,910 votes counted. This race could turn into a nail-biter, since more than half the votes remain to be counted. At stake is whether the Redding City Council remains a Bethel board majority, the so-called Bethel Juggernaut, or some other new formation, perhaps one beholden to Trump 2.0.
Redding City Council Short Term Seat
Mark Mezzano
Erin Resner
The race between former Redding City Councilwoman Erin Resner and current Redding City Councilman Mark Mezzano to replace outgoing councilman Michael Dacquisto has not been without acrimony. It is one of the closest races on the local ballot, with Resner leading Mezzano 47 percent to 45 percent, 9,048 votes to 8,672 votes, a lead of 376 votes.
The outcome of the short-term race will also affect the Bethel board majority, which may be semi-sustained if Johnson –a former Bethel Church member — and Resner — a member of The Stirring, a church with close ties to Bethel — are elected to the council. Assuming the 19,453 votes counted so far represent half the total votes, this race is too close to call.
Shasta County Board of Education Trustee Area 2, 2 Seats
Jackie LaBarbera.
Jessica French.
Rich Gallardo.
A News Café was the first local publication to warn Shasta County voters not to vote for Jackie LaBarbera, Rich Gallardo, Michelle Renee Tyson and Teresa Robert and for good reason: All four are true believers in the Moms for Liberty agenda, the anti-LGBTQ activist group funded by the Heritage Foundation. The foundation also created Project 2025, the fascist makeover of America Trump plans to implement when he takes office in January. Destroying the public school system, from the Department of Education on down to county boards of education across the nation, is one of their primary goals.
When it comes to Tuesday’s election results, the news isn’t great for supporters of public schools as we’ve known them since the 1950s.
Consider current Anderson Union High School District board president and human wrecking ball Jackie LaBarbera. During her short time in office, LaBarbera passed a policy that forced school employees to out trans kids against their will, attempted to veto any funding associated with diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and created a toxic work environment that led to a staff exodus from the district. Now she appears well on her way to bringing the same act to the Shasta County Board of Education.
LaBarbera leads the six-horse field with 25 percent of the vote. Social justice warrior, exchange student guru and Shasta Unmasked talk radio co-host Jessica French is six points behind with 19 percent. And horror of horrors, Gallardo is just 1 percent behind French with 18 percent of the vote.
French has 6,420 votes to Gallardo’s 6,212 votes, a lead of 208 votes with 34,024 votes counted as of Tuesday. In 2020, 61,513 people voted for five SCBOE Area 2 candidates, suggesting that half the votes in 2024 remain to be counted.
If the vote by mail count favors liberals and progressives, French will win the second SCBOE Area 2 seat in a squeaker. It’s a must-win situation.
Michael Orlicky.
In the two-person race for the single Area SCBOE Area 1 trustee seat, Michael Orlicky has a small lead over Tyson. With 14,733 votes counted, Orlicky, the safe and sane candidate, leads 52 percent to 48 percent. Again, figure half the votes still remain to be counted.
The bad news is Teresa Roberts appears to be running away with the race for the SCBOE Area 2 short term seat. With 20,868 votes counted, Roberts leads 64 percent to Cindy Vogt’s 36 percent. If LaBarbera, Gallardo, Tyson and Roberts win, they’ll be able to join forces with current board member Authur Gorman and form a five-member MAGA majority on the seven-member board of education.
Gorman, a self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist, has openly talked about replacing education staff with more “godly people.”
He may get his wish.
Bobbie Simpson is your Gateway Unified School District winner!
The Best News You’ll Read All Week: Bobbie Simpson for the Win!
For opponents of Trump and his now openly fascist movement, it’s been a dreadful week. We’re not prepared for what’s coming this January. That’s why Bobbie Simpson’s victory in the Gateway Unified School District Area 3 trustee race is the best news you’ll read all week. Simpson currently leads incumbent Elias Haynes 58 percent to 42 percent, a 16 point margin, with 2,205 votes counted.
A News Café has been following Simpson’s transformative journey for two years, after she began regularly attending GUSD board meetings. The meetings became tumultuous after the board was taken over by conservative extremists Cherrill Clifford and husband and wife Elias and Lindsi Haynes, and suddenly people like Simpson were a problem, along with the rest of the “woke ideology.”
Simpson, 45, is a transgender female who’s been living openly as a woman since she turned 40. She identifies as a lesbian and is married to a woman. They have two children who attend Gateway schools.
Why’d she wait so long before socially transitioning? Although Simpson identified as a girl at an early age, she was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder when she was 14, and it took literally decades of therapy to integrate her identity.
“One common thing that I hear from a lot of trans people is like, I wish I transitioned earlier,” Simpson said last Thursday at Theory. “I don’t really have regrets about that. I have kind of lived, it’s like a second life. I see things from, you know, a new perspective and it’s really interesting to being able to compare and contrast what’s it like to live as a man, what’s it like to live as a women. … I don’t wish that it had always been like this. I do appreciate the experience that I had before and the perspective it gives me.”
Simpson expected to take some flack when she first began attending meetings, and she did, from transphobic bigots such as SCBOE board member Authur Gorman, who refuses to use Simpson’s preferred pronouns. What she wasn’t expecting to find was a community that welcomed her with open arms.
“I’ve met a lot of people this past year, as you can imagine, especially being involved with NorCal OUTreach,” she said. “And this year I was the coordinator for Redding Pride.”
Bobbie Simpson.
She had considered running for the Shasta County Board of Education but signed up to take on Elias Haynes for GUSD Area 3 seat shortly before the filing deadline earlier this year. Haynes, who has not returned several emails from A News Café during the election, did not actively campaign for his seat. Simpson had a lot of supporters who helped her mail out 500 to 1000 post cards. That looks like it was enough to win the seat.
“I’m really interested in first seeing how their programs work, what they have already in place,” Simpson said. “But I know that people learn in different ways, and you have to be able to meet the kids where they are, how they learn the most effective.”
Simpson plans to be an advocate for LGBTQ students.
“I can see people commenting about, you know, I’m forcing my lifestyle on students, which is absolutely not the case,” Simpson said. “I just want to support the students who need it. I think that they should feel safe and free to be who they are and explore who they are, without, you know, being totally harassed and assaulted.”
With the LGBTQ community expressing fear nationwide with the second coming of the Trump administration, Simpson admitted she as at times contemplated moving from hyper conservative Shasta County, but instead chose to stick it out and contribute to the community.
“Most of the people that I know are in California, so we have a more, you know, protections already in place,” she said. “It’s something we’re stable with here. But I do know people that are out of state and they are terrified. There’s a lot of people who are talking about suicide.”
Thanks to Simpson’s status as a winning transgender female schoolboard candidate in California’s reddest county, she’s been granting interviews to local and state media outlets. She’s been trying to not let it go to her head but made the mistake of going on social media that morning after being tagged in a comment. Big mistake.
“I’m like, oh, that’s cool,” she said. “Well, the comment they left was great, but the rest of the comments after that were like … I shouldn’t have done that.”
Even though the comments are running about 60 percent to 70 percent positive, she’s trying to stay off social media.
It’s sound advice until we get this election sorted out.
