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Initial election tallies point to a Kristie Wang victory in Livermore City Council District 4 and a lead of 200-plus votes for Steven Dunbar in District 3, but ongoing ballot counts could shake up the leaderboard in the coming days.
In city’s District 4, Livermore school board Trustee Wang has collected 55.98% of the vote (2,044) while retired physicist Tom Soules has garnered 44.02% (1,607).
Despite Wang’s lead, she is holding out for the updated numbers to see who wins this election. But for Soules, he considers his victory “not likely”.
Only time will tell though, who will become southwest Livermore’s newest representative.
“I’m refreshing my phone the same way I imagine all the other candidates are,” Wang told Livermore Vine. “I know there are still a lot of votes to be counted, so I’m just waiting to see what happens.”
In a recent message to supporters, Soules gave his insight into the election so far, including “the good, the bad and the ugly”.
On the good side, Soules said he had a great campaign team and met a lot of good people.
“We showed the mayor and the city government that it was not just a few renegade folks who cared about the character of the city,” he wrote. “Even if we didn’t win we shook things up.”
On the bad side, he said 44% of the votes don’t win a two-person election.
As for the ugly, he said, “The Alameda County Democratic Party endorsed my opponent and sent out sample recommended ballots even though our race was non-partisan.”
Wang received the committee’s endorsement, according to the party website. But its sample ballot mailer could not be independently verified by the time of this publication.
In District 3, Livermore Planning Commissioner Steven Dunbar leads the race for City Council, a spot he’s held since the first preliminary reporting period on Election Night.
Dunbar earned nearly 39% of the vote (1,316 votes) as of early Wednesday morning. By comparison, second-place candidate and former member of Livermore’s Downtown Steering Committee Jeff Kaskey trails at 31.81% of the vote (1,074).
But with only 242 votes separating the two leaders, the future representative of southeast Livermore is still uncertain.
Dunbar did not respond for comment, as of Thursday morning.
In regards to his own campaign Kaskey said, “I do feel good that we raised some issues which were not getting the attention I felt they needed.”
Keeping development inside the urban growth boundary and moving at least some of Eden Housing across Railroad Avenue were a few of his positions.
“For my part, I continue to be interested in serving this community,” Kaskey said, as a curator of the Livermore Heritage Guild. “I just activated an advanced composting system at the City’s historic Hagemann Ranch site, turning manure from our horses into valuable compost for use in the on-site gardens and in the community. Maybe there’s a political analogy there.”
Not far behind Kaskey is airport commissioner David Farley who has gathered 29.21% of the vote (986).
“Regardless of the outcome of the election, I will continue to leverage my background and abilities to affect society at the national and international levels through my work, as well as continue my volunteer activities locally,” Farley told Livermore Vine.
He added, “We ran an honest campaign based on merit and broad appeal, and, unlike my opponents, devoid of mudslinging, bending the rules, external influences, or a reliance on nepotism to get elected.”
