Two Santa Ana City Council members may go head to head in November to succeed Assemblyman Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim) after one Democratic councilwoman took a nearly 1,000 vote lead over Republican candidate Mayra Ruiz this week.
Tuesday evening’s election results update showed Democratic Santa Ana Councilman David Penaloza was in the lead with nearly 33% of the vote ahead of Democrat Santa Ana Councilwoman Jessie Lopez at 31% – a difference of nearly 1,100 votes.
Ruiz, who was in the first place lead at one point last week, trailed behind Lopez by less than 1,000 votes on Tuesday evening.
As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, nearly 269,000 votes have been tallied in Orange County since election day.
At the same time, there were over 37,000 ballots left to process throughout the county.
The district covers parts of Anaheim, Orange and Santa Ana.
Penaloza is endorsed by a host of public safety unions, labor unions and the California Democratic Party and received some of his largest support from tech companies.
Lopez is endorsed by California Working Families Party, Chispa, CAIR Action, progressive organizations and some labor unions, including the Service Employees International Union.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
