Santa Barbara County 2nd District Supervisor Gregg Hart will have one last meeting as a county official on Nov. 29, and then he may be taking a seat up in Sacramento as the state’s 37th District Assembly member.
The district—made up of Santa Barbara and southern SLO County—changed after the required redistricting process, pushing both candidates to run for office. Preliminary results show Hart in the lead with 57.9 percent of the district’s votes and his opponent, Mike Stoker, with 42.1 percent, according to California secretary of state election data as of press time on Nov. 15.
Hart celebrated election night with his 92-year-old mother and his son at a victory party with 300 people in attendance, he said.
“I was overwhelmed with the enthusiastic support of the people in the room,” Hart said. “I think it reflects the hard work I’ve been doing in local government, and reflects the respectful, civil way that I do my job.”
Hart pulled ahead in Santa Barbara County with 58.77 percent of the votes (43,589 votes) and Stoker earned 41.23 percent (30,583), according to preliminary election results data. However, in SLO County, Stoker took the lead with 51.1 percent (3,006 votes) with Hart right behind at 48.89 percent (2,876 votes).
“It’s very important to count every vote, and I look forward to getting the final results, but my lead is significant. I’m not slowing down, I’m going straight to work, and I’m excited to represent the residents,” Hart said.
According to the Santa Barbara County Clerk-Recorder’s Office, there’s still an estimated 61,130 votes to be processed. And updated count was released on Nov. 15 after the Sun went to press.
Assembly District 30 is about to receive its first representative. The newly formed district—covering the counties of Santa Cruz, Monterey, and parts of San Luis Obispo—will see leadership from either Democrat Dawn Addis or Republican Vicki Nohrden.
Early vote counts from all three counties show Addis in the lead. With more than 77,000 votes so far from Assembly District 30, current Morro Bay City Councilmember Addis holds the lion’s share at 62.2 percent, according to the Nov. 13 preliminary results posted by the California secretary of state’s office. Nohrden stood at 37.8 percent.
Addis received 54.5 percent, 67.7 percent, and 74.7 percent of tallied votes from SLO, Monterey, and Santa Cruz Counties, respectively. The frontrunner also soared in terms of campaign funding compared to her opponent.
Campaign finance data indicated that Addis raked in a little more than $1 million district-wide from the beginning of the year until Oct. 22. Nohrden brought in roughly $96,004 over the same time period.
On Nov. 9, the day the general election, Nohrden’s office emailed a campaign newsletter titled “The race isn’t over yet … ,” asking for more donations.
“In one county, vote tallies do not even include ballots submitted Monday night, let alone in-person votes cast on Tuesday,” it read. “I need your help—we need funds to keep on top of county election reporting! There are so many moving pieces to protecting election integrity and EVERY VOTE COUNTS!”
An ordained minister and founder of a religious group called Wind and Fire Ministries, Nohrden wrote a book called Breaking the Shield of Minerva in 2008, where she called California’s natural disasters God’s punishment for progressive policies surrounding same-sex marriage and reproductive rights.
The Assembly District 30 race isn’t her first political campaign. Nohrden ran for Assembly District 29 and state Senate District 17 in 2018 and 2020, respectively. She lost both times. Addis ran in 2020 for the previous iteration of Assembly District 30—then 35—but lost to Republican Jordan Cunningham.
Addis celebrated her early lead on the night of Nov. 8 at SLO’s Big Sky Café soon after the first set of counted votes were released.
This article appears in Nov 17-24, 2022.
