Former Victorville Mayor/Councilman Ryan McEachron over five days in the last week made a dynamic leap into third place in this year’s city council race, which featured 22 contestants. McEachron’s burgeoning vote total for several days put him on a trajectory to return to the Victorville City Council dais, but as of yesterday, he had again slipped into fourth place, just short of victory, as the three top vote-getters in this year’s race will qualify for a position on the council.
On the night of the election, at 10 p.m., when the first report of the results came in, a tally of the votes from 52 of Victorville’s 75 precincts had been made. At that point, incumbent councilwoman Blanca Gomez was leading the pack with 4,184 votes or 9.8 percent, followed by Elizabeth Becerra, at 4,020 votes or 9.42 percent, and Leslie Irving claiming third with 3,433 votes or 8.04 percent. Kareema Abdul was in fourth with 3,070 votes or 7.19 percent. McEachron was in fifth place, having polled 2,858 votes or 6.7 percent.
A 4 a.m. on November 4, all 75 of the city’s precincts had reported, and Gomez was yet in first place with 4,944 votes, slightly ahead yet of Becerra’s total of 4,909 votes. Irving remained in third with 3,857 votes and Abdul in fourth with 3,561 votes. McEachron held steady in the fifth place dark horse position with 3,539 votes, 22 votes behind Abdul. Later that day, at 4 p.m., Gomez was still the front-runner with 4,969 votes to Becerra’s 4,939 votes. Irving was in a strong third place position with 3,888 votes. Abdul, with 3,582 votes, maintained a 20-vote lead over McEachron at 3,562 votes.
On November 5, as more mail-in ballots were counted, Becerra, with 5,622 votes, overtook Gomez, at 5,610 votes, by a dozen voter endorsements. From that point going forward Becerra has remained in first place, widening her lead over Gomez, who has until present remained safely in second place. The same day, McEachron, with 4,279 votes, leapt past Abdul, whose total at that point stood at 4,139 votes.
On November 6, McEachron, with 4,470 votes, remained well behind Irving, at 4,763 votes, heading into the weekend.
On November 9, McEachron began to move up on Irving, making a net gain of 166 votes over her as more straggling mail-in ballots came into the registrar of voters office during the weekend. Irving at that point had logged 5,320 votes to McEachron’s 5,193. On November 10, McEachron continued to close the gap, as he registered 5,551 votes to Irving’s 5,608. No tallying was performed on Veteran’s Day, but on November 12, McEachron, at 6,212 votes, was 30 votes behind Irving, at 6,242. On November 13, McEachron bolted into third place, having registered 6,695 votes to Irving’s 7,667.
Over the weekend, McEachron maintained his third place position, but saw his 28 vote lead slip, as Irving picked up a net of 23 votes over him as of November 16. McEachron’s tally was at that juncture 6,713 votes to her 6,708 votes, a margin of five.
On November 17, Irving retook the lead by scoring a net positive of eight votes over McEachron, such that he had 6,748 votes and Irving had 6,751.
On November 18 McEachron posted 6,773 votes to Irving’s 6,779.
Yesterday, Thursday, November 19, Irving was pulling away, having pulled down 6,810 votes to McEachron’s 6,791, a lead of 18 votes.
Today, McEachron was drifting back further still, as he had notched 6,801 votes and Irving had bagged 6,824, widening her lead to 23. Of note is that 25 of the votes for McEachron were on provisional ballots which may or may not be discounted when the final results are tallied. As of today, 38 of the ballots containing votes for Irving were provisional ones. It is unknown outside of the registrar of voters office whether there is any commonality among those provisional ballots which contained votes for Irving and McEachron.
As time progresses, fewer and fewer mail-in ballots are drifting into the registrar of voters office. The election is due to be certified by December 11.
-Mark Gutglueck