SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Bernie Sanders captured a majority of California’s votes – and the state’s 416 delegates – making a decent Super Tuesday win for the Vermont Democrat in a night where the majority of votes in 13 other states went to Joe Biden.
Santa Cruz County voters favored Sanders, however, with 38.4 percent of the vote. Biden received nearly 23 percent.
Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, all of whom dropped out of the presidential race in the days leading to Tuesday’s vote, have endorsed Biden.
It is still unclear which Democrat will be tasked with taking on President Donald Trump in the November election.
Meanwhile, in California, Proposition 13 – the only state measure to appear on the ballot – seems headed to defeat after early returns showed nearly 56 percent rejected it.
Prop 13 would have authorized the state to sell $15 billion in general obligation bonds to fund construction and modernization projects at schools, universities and community colleges.
Just over 45 percent of Santa Cruz County voters chose Santa Cruz County Supervisor John Leopold, for the First District seat.
Manu Koenig captured 29.2 percent of the vote, sending him to face off against the four-term incumbent.
Assemblyman Mark Stone resoundingly held onto his 29th District seat, beating Republican Shomir Banerjee by 77.7 percent.
Nancy De La Pena seemed poised to lead the race for Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge, with more than 43 percent of the vote. She will head to the November race against the nearest vote-getter, which on Wednesday was Annrae Angel, who garnered nearly 29 percent.
John Laird and Vicki Nohrden were locked in a tight battle for the State Senate 17th District seat.
As of 9:09 p.m. on March 3, Laird received 41 percent of the vote to Nohrden’s 40.8 percent, separated by only 171 votes.
In Santa Clara County, however, Nohrden garnered nearly 1,000 more votes than Laird, and led all candidates with nearly 38 percent of the vote.
Congressman Jimmy Panetta commanded a vast majority of the votes for California’s 20th District seat on the House of Representatives, with more than 65 percent of the votes as of Wednesday at noon.
Unless those numbers show a drastic change, Panetta will head to the November election against Republican Jeff Gorman.
Robert Rivas took the lead over his opponent Gregory Swett for the State Assembly 30th District seat in a preview of the November election.
In early unofficial results released at 8:30 p.m. on March 3, Rivas garnered 63 percent of the vote across the district in the two-person primary race. In Santa Clara County, the Hollister Democrat received 58 percent of the vote.
Gilroy Dispatch reporter Erik Chalhoub contributed to this report.
