Democrats Clarissa Cervantes and Ronaldo Fierro are in a closely contested race for a November runoff spot in the 58th State Assembly District. California’s unofficial election results show Cervantes holding a 119 vote lead over Fierro. Republican Leticia Castillo awaits the winner.
The district represents large swaths of voters in Riverside County and voters in the San Bernardino County city of Grand Terrace.
Press Enterprise reporter Jeff Horseman continues to track the race and has insights for listeners.
What factors do you think are contributing to this race being so tight?
I would have to say the biggest one is probably the low turnout. We tend to see these types of tight races in situations where there's not a lot of people voting compared to previous elections.
The most direct comparison that I can make is in 2022 — to the 47th Assembly District — which again, I don't think was a super high turnout election. That election was the one that Greg Wallis, a Republican, ended up winning by 85 votes over a Democrat Christy Holstege, so my experience is you do tend to see these tight races when there aren't as many people voting.
What factors do you see between Cervantes and Fierro that could have swayed voters one way or another?
Cervantes’ past DUI arrests. The one from last summer and the one from 2014. And the choice presented to voters in these attack ads was, “Hey, do you want to trust someone who has two DUIs on her record?” They’re implying that she’s untrustworthy or undeserving of public office.
So you might think that that might have been a deciding factor, whether people thought that those DUIs were a big deal or not. Fierro, if you look at his stances, tended to present himself as more of a political moderate and Cervantes tends to be on the more progressive side of things. Again, hard to say. Maybe if there were some highly engaged democratic voters in this election they might have been able to parse out the difference between the moderate Fierro and the progressive Cervantes.
Looking ahead to November, what strategies do you think these candidates can employ to secure victory?
He or she is going to start out with an advantage in the general election. And the advantage being simply voter registration. If you look at the registration breakdown, the fifth the Democrats, it's a fairly blue district, the Democrats have, I think, at least a double digit edge in voter registration over Republican voters.
And so while I'm sure Leticia Castillo, as she did in the primary, is going to emphasize a kind of a law and order traditional Republican message. I think whether it's Fierro, or Cervantes, just by nature having a ‘D’ next to their name that's going to be doing a lot of work for them.
And do you think there'll be a recount in this race?
That is hard to say. I checked with the Registrar of Voters’ Public Information Officer and she said there is no automatic recount. You see this in some other states where if a race is so close, there's an automatic recount. There's not going to be that in the 50th assembly district. What's going to have to happen is either Fierro or Cervantes would have to ask for a recount. They have up to five days after the results are certified to request one. And then what would happen is they would have to pay for the recount. So this wouldn't be something that taxpayer dollars or have to be footing the bill on.
So, we'll see. I mean, you know, it's going to come down to the final vote tally.
