Ward 2 Council Lead Narrows to 3.5 Points Amid 455,000 Unprocessed Ballots

Election night results in Riverside shifted as the county continued processing mail ballots on Wednesday, Nov. 4. The Ward 2 City Council race narrowed considerably, while the Ward 4 contest moved further in favor of the incumbent.

Gracie Torres held a 3.5 percentage point lead over Aram Ayra in Ward 2 as of the county’s 5 p.m. report. This margin was smaller than the 4.1 point advantage Torres held in the initial Tuesday night results. In contrast, Councilmember Chuck Conder widened his lead in Ward 4 against challenger Rich Vandenberg to 7.3 percentage points. Conder’s lead had been 5.9 points when polling stations closed Tuesday.

The Ward 2 seat is open because incumbent Clarissa Cervantes is running for the California State Assembly in District 58. Torres has maintained a lead in every county report since polls closed, though the gap has fluctuated. It dipped to 3.7 points by 10 p.m. Tuesday before recovering slightly early Wednesday. The majority of ballots added to the count Wednesday were cast in person. Ayra won those in-person votes 173 to 155, while Torres secured more of the newly counted mail ballots, 67 to 56.

This runoff is a rematch of the June primary, where Torres finished first with 38% of the vote and Ayra second with 35.7%. That 2.3 point gap was the tightest in a Ward 2 race since at least 1997, according to a Gazette analysis of county records. Ayra also competed for the seat in 2021, finishing third. Speaking Tuesday night, Ayra expressed gratitude to voters and county staff, noting that thousands of ballots remained to be processed.

In Ward 4, Conder won both types of ballots added on Wednesday. He claimed 220 of the mail ballots and 140 of the in-person votes, while Vandenberg received 200 mail ballots and 48 in-person votes. Conder, who was first elected in 2017, led the June primary with 45.6% of the vote but did not secure the majority required to win outright. Vandenberg finished second with 28.3%.

Both races are being decided under ward boundaries adopted in June 2023. This is the first general election held under these new lines, which limits the predictive value of previous results. Runoffs are rare in these districts; neither ward had one since January 2006. The Gazette’s analysis found only five past runoffs with multiple count records, making it difficult to gauge how much late ballots typically shift the outcome.

School board contests also saw changes. In Alvord Unified School District Trustee Area 4, Norma O. Berrellez led Jamie Walden by 0.3 percentage points, a near tie. Walden won more of the in-person ballots added Wednesday, but Berrellez took more mail ballots. In Riverside Unified School District Trustee Area 1, Noemi Hernandez Alexander maintained a double-digit lead over Duffy Atkinson. Hernandez Alexander stood at 52% of the vote, while Atkinson had 39% and Jinane Annous had 9%.

The Riverside County Registrar of Voters estimated that 455,000 vote-by-mail ballots and 11,000 Conditional Voter Registration ballots remain to be counted countywide. The county begins its official canvass Thursday, Nov. 5. Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day will be counted if they arrive by Nov. 10. Results must be certified by Dec. 3.