Upset in the 1st District: Roy Lee Takes Insurmountable Lead

[Updated: Wed., Mar. 13, 2024, 5:30pm]

With 2,000 ballots yet to be processed and roughly 100 left to count in the race for Santa Barbara County’s 1st District supervisor, an election tally on Wednesday morning showed challenger Roy Lee holding his slim but now insurmountable lead over incumbent Das Williams by 544 votes. According to Joe Holland, the county elections czar, provisional ballots, mismatching signatures on ballots, overseas ballots, and other complications make up the 2,000 yet to be counted countywide. Of that number, fewer than 100 are in the 1st District, said Holland, who assured all the ballots would be tallied before the April 4 deadline.

Both campaigns ran a strong ground game, knocking on doors, sending mailers, making phone calls, and spending on TV and social media ads. But Lee, a city councilmember for Carpinteria, sent mailers to every household in the 1st, regardless of party. Countywide, Republicans turned out 10 percent more votes than Democrats.

“Being at the restaurant gave me a unique perspective,” he said. “I talked to 100 people every day for over six months” about his run for supervisor. “I don’t know those individuals as Republicans or Democrats, but as who they are,” said Lee, who is a registered Democrat. “One example is Mike Stoker, who’s lived in Carpinteria for a long time. Through the years, we became friends. Republicans would rather support a Democrat who is business minded, rather than Das, who’s more a career politician.” Stoker has long been in the Santa Barbara County trenches for the Republican Party and is a customer at Lee’s family restaurant, Uncle Chen.

Das Williams said he heard an overwhelming amount of support from voters at doors, but he thinks many of them didn’t end up voting. “We talked to a lot of Republicans, as well,” he said, “who were noncommittal, which is often a polite ‘no.’” Williams said he could not remember an election season that was so negative, both in word-of-mouth and in the press. (The Independent did not endorse either candidate for the 1st.)

In a statement, Williams thanked those who have voted for him nine times during his 21-year political career, which spans the Santa Barbara City Council, State Assembly, and Board of Supervisors, giving him “the chance I yearned for all my life: to make a difference for our shared future.”

Lee confirmed that his campaign manager Wade Cowper will become chief-of-staff for his office once he’s sworn in come early January 2025. The remainder of his staff picks have not been made, Lee said.

In the two other races for supervisor, Joan Hartmann kept her lead for 3rd District with 58.8 percent of the vote in a field of three, while Bob Nelson had a comfortable 50 percent lead in the 4th District.