Everyone crowded into the back room of Rusty’s Pizza Parlor on State Street in Santa Barbara on June 3 knew that U.S. Rep Lois Capps was going to win the primary race for District 24.
First place wasn’t what this primary was about to the people eating pizza and hovering over a couple of iPads at the corner of a long table. Everyone there wanted to hear that Justin Fareed, a 26-year-old Republican candidate, received enough votes to face Capps in November’s general election.
“We’re winning in Ventura and SLO,” his mother Linda said with a smile after she checked the polls around 9 p.m. “We are very proud of him … his whole soul is in this.”
It wasn’t just family and friends gathered at Rusty’s, there were also volunteers, some younger than 18. One of the volunteers was 17-year-old Paul Tompkins, a student from Mission College Preparatory High School. He’d been knocking on doors and making phone calls for the campaign over the last three months.
He said he was looking forward to November, when he could vote—hopefully, for Fareed.
“It would be nice to have a voice for our generation,” Tompkins said, adding that Fareed is young enough to feel the fiscal effects of the decisions made by Congress.
Although Fareed had a slim lead at the beginning of the night, he began to slip out of his second-place slot as votes were tallied.
Preliminary election results, as of 3 a.m. on June 5, according to the Secretary of State’s website, put Capps in first with 44.5 percent of the votes and Republican Chris Mitchum in second with 15.6 percent of votes—that’s 914 votes ahead of Fareed.
The final results of the primary will be called at the end of the 28-day post-election canvassing period. Fareed is confident that things could change.
“I really do believe we can win this general election, too. I knew it would be close,” he said.
Fareed’s supporters agree; they think he’s the only viable candidate who’s got a chance against Capps in November. As for calling the preliminary election results final, Capps told the Sun it was almost too close to call who would be running against her in the general election.
“Chris Mitchum, or whoever my opponent is, I congratulate them and look forward to a vigorous race,” Capps said. “But in the meantime, I’m going to get back to work in Congress.”
This article appears in Jun 5-12, 2014.