Sawyer and Gorin jump out to early lead. Is Carrillo headed for outright victory?

Santa Rosa City Councilmember John Sawyer and Susan Gorin have jumped out to early leads over the rest of the field in the six-candidate race for 1st District supervisor. If their lead holds, these two longtime political rivals, whose campaigns have been trading attacks in recent days, will be squaring off in the final race in the fall.

Meanwhile, over in the 5th District, incumbent Efren Carrillo has started off with a sizeable lead – more than 60 percent of the vote – over his contenders, former Supervisor Ernie Carpenter and former Santa Rosa City Councilwoman Veronica Jacobi. If this lead holds, there will be no fall runoff. Efren will win outright.

Also headed for victory is 3rd District Supervisor Shirlee Zane who is leading her opponent, former Rohnert Park Mayor Tim Smith, with 62.5 percent of the vote.

In the old days, these snap tallies of absentee ballots often didn’t mean much in the long run. They tended to be more conservative and represent a small sampling of the overall turnout. Not so anymore with the increase in the number of those who vote by mail.

Look at the  numbers. These early results represent 24.6 percent of the turnout. That’s nearly half of the votes that are expected to be cast in this election. If so, the opponents of these candidates have some catching up to do if there’s going to be a change in these supervisorial races.

- Paul Gullixson