Merced County’s latest election update. What the newest numbers show
Merced County updated its primary election results Tuesday night, and only one race still appears up for grabs.
The county processed more than 11,700 ballots since the latest batch was made public Friday evening. After Tuesday’s update, there are still 3,936 unprocessed ballots.
The only local race still to be determined is that for the Merced County superintendent of schools.
Richard Lopez appears to have secured one runoff spot. He leads three others candidates with 11,857 votes (31.46%).
The race for the second runoff spot is still too close to call, with Ana Boyenga leading Paula Heupel by 575 votes. Boyenga has 11,064 votes (29.35%), ahead of Heupel’s 10,489 votes (27.83%).
The top two finishers advance to a runoff in November.
Lopez is superintendent of Merced River School District. Boyenga is the assistant superintendent of the Atwater Elementary School District. Heupel is superintendent of El Nido Elementary School District.
Merced County’s two supervisorial races appear to have clear winners.
In the District 3 race, Luis Lara leads incumbent Supervisor Daron McDaniel 60.09% to 39.69%. The district covers Atwater, Winton, Beachwood-Franklin and McSwain. McDaniel posted his consolation on Facebook on Saturday. “While this is not the result we had hoped and worked so hard for, I respect the decision of the voters and offer my congratulations to my opponent,” the post says.
In the District 5 race, incumbent Supervisor Scott Silveira defeated Miguel Alejandre 62.28% to 37.31%. The district includes Dos Palos and Los Banos.
The county says its next update will be no later than 5 p.m. Thursday.
