news story / By North Coast Journal Staff

Election Results

Bass takes commanding lead into November; Downey wins big; Jackson, Gallegos runoff

(June 10, 2010) FOURTH DISTRICT

Eureka Mayor Virginia Bass, partying down at Avalon in Old Town Tuesday night, had every reason to celebrate, what with taking a strong 48.3 percent of the vote by the time all Eureka precincts had been counted. But barring a miracle in the pile of absentee votes yet to be tabulated, her just-shy-of-50-percent showing means that she’s going to be headed into faceoff with the second-place finisher, incumbent Bonnie Neely, in November.

Patrick Cleary and staffer Monica Topping. PHOTO BY BOB DORAN

GALLERY >

When she received news of the final vote, a friend came up and told her that she made an excellent showing. “I guess I’m just an overachiever,” she said, adding that she would be back out on the campaign trail in a couple of weeks.

Earlier, Neely was down F Street at Brick & Fire Restaurant when the first not-so-hot results came across. At the time, she wasn’t ready to give comment, saying that there was still a lot of counting left to be done. But supporters rallied round. With only 30.4 percent of the vote, they’re going to have to marshal their forces for the long, hard slog into November.

At Roy’s Club, Eureka City Councilmember Jeff Leonard was fairly upbeat early in the night, even if it was pretty that he was headed for third place. “I will say this — our campaign picked up more momentum as time went on and I have never had so many people work on my behalf before. I would have liked to have proved that a hundred dollar campaign can beat a hundred thousand dollar campaign, but …”

FIFTH DISTRICT

The results from the McKinleyville area had yet to be counted when the Journal had to go to press, but it was clear that insurance agent Ryan Sundberg was going to command the largest share of the vote. When our reporter tipped him to the early results, he reddened a bit. “This is my first time with this, but it’s good to be ahead,” he said. A cheer went up when the news had spread. The boisterous Sundberg crew had taken over the Silver Lining restaurant at the Eureka-Arcata airport for the occasion, and the party was officially on. The absentee vote and only two Fifth District precincts had been counted at press time, but Sundberg was way out ahead of his three competitors with 43.8 percent.

Sundberg’s two principal competitors — Patrick Cleary and Pat Higgins — did everyone the favor of holding their parties at adjoining locations, while also doing everyone the disservice of finishing so closely to one another. Over at Six Rivers Brewery, it looked like Cleary had a solid edge, with 28.1 percent of the vote to Higgins’ 23.5, but with so few votes counted in McKinleyville it wasn’t yet a sure thing. “In business you get immediate results,” Cleary told a reporter. “With this you don’t.”

1 2 3 NEXT PAGE >SHARE