Merced County DA challenger takes big early lead in testy race

With the first round of votes tallied during Tuesday's primary elections, ballots were leaning toward an upset in the Merced County District Attorney’s race.

The heated race saw jabbing in the past few months between incumbent District Attorney Larry Morse II and challenger Kimberly Helms Lewis, a prosecutor for Stanislaus County.

Early returns from the polls had Helms Lewis up 65 percent to 35 percent for Morse, according to the numbers provided by the Merced County Registrar of Voters Office. Helms Lewis carried a lead of more than 1,300 votes reporting by press time.

The candidates and their camps have lobbed barbs back and forth with campaign mailers disparaging one another, drawing attention to accusations of sexual misconduct against Morse and accusations that Helms Lewis dropped the ball on filing sex crimes charges on more than one occasion.

Leading the race for Merced County Office of Education was incumbent Steve Tietjen with 54 percent of votes, while the sole opponent, Richard Lopez, had 45 percent.

Tietjen, who is in his first election, took over as superintendent in December 2016 after being recommended to the school board by his predecessor, Steve Gomes.

Lopez is the superintendent of Merced River School District and a member of the Merced Union High School District board.

Early signs showed turnout was higher than expected , according to Registrar of Voters Barbara Levey,

Vote-by-mail ballots came in at a healthy rate and voters streaming through the polling places were seen at a steady pace, Levey said. "It's not overwhelming by any means for anybody. We haven't heard any complaints of lines," she said Tuesday afternoon. "But, it's been steady. It's not quiet."

The registrar of voters sent out about 64,000 vote-by-mail ballots and have so far received about 11,000, Levey said. That's roughly 17 percent that have been returned and verified. Absentee ballots that are dropped off today or placed in the mail in time have not been counted.

Levey said those numbers exceeded her expectation for a gubernatorial election, which routinely sees low turnout in Merced County. She was quick to say the real turnout has yet to be seen and won't be known for days.

The past few gubernatorial races have seen a turnout in the county between 25 percent and 28 percent, Levey said.

Voter activity in the Los Banos area seemed better than usual, she said, likely thanks to the new vote center. New this year, the vote center can accept ballots from voters despite where they live and offers a number of other services not available at the typical polling place, Levey said.

The Voting Center began taking ballots on Saturday.

For full election coverage and results, visit the mercedsunstar.com.

This story was originally published June 5, 2018 at 8:35 PM with the headline "Merced County DA challenger takes big early lead in testy race."