As of Tuesday afternoon — one week after last Tuesday’s election — Santa Barbara mayoral candidate Kristen Sneddon had pulled 296 votes ahead of her chief rival, Councilmember Eric Friedman. As of last Friday, Sneddon — endorsed by the Democratic Party and the candidate of choice for rent stabilization advocates — had been 312 votes behind. On election night, the gap was nearly 500.
Right now, the election remains too close to call; anything is still possible in this teeter-totter of a mayoral race. But according to conventional wisdom and historic voting patterns, the late-arriving ballots tend to tilt heavily toward younger, more progressive voters. And in the year of the Blue Tsunami, this pulse of late-arriving votes hewed and skewed way more Democratic even than usual.
Although Sneddon and Friedman are both lifelong Democrats — and both two-term councilmembers — Sneddon’s campaign mailers all bore the mark of the party’s endorsement. Friedman, by contrast, is much more moderate by temperament and ideology. In this race, that made him the de facto conservative. At a time when younger voters were looking to make a statement against the first two years of Donald Trump, Friedman’s big-digit financial support from an independent expenditure committee affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce and the national Board of Realtors out of Chicago was not a turn-on.
While the three council races were all run-away victories claimed by the most visibly progressive candidates — Devon Wardlow, Ian Baucke, and Gabe Escobedo — in their respective fields, the four-way mayoral contest (which also included candidates Wendy Sims-Moten and Matt Kilrain) has been a neck-and-neck contest seemingly between the tortoise and the hare.
County election officials estimate 25,000 ballots are left to be counted. But that’s countywide, not just for the City of Santa Barbara. What those numbers are remain a matter of intense speculation and conjecture among campaign consultants and professional prognosticators. While it remains theoretically possible that Friedman might reclaim the lead, that’s a very big lead he’d have to overcome with a relatively small number of votes left with which to do it. The trend lines decidedly do not tilt in Friedman’s favor.
Anecdotally, elections workers reported a larger than usual showing of voters walking their ballots to the polls, lest they get hijacked in the mail.
When the latest results were released this Tuesday afternoon, there was some fist bumping and big grins by those supporting Sneddon and the newer, younger, more progressive wave. For Friedman, it was a lonely moment in a lonely room. And for longtime councilmembers Michael Jordan and Meagan Harmon — both supporters of Friedman — it was a time of defiant commiseration.
“This is what the good old days look like,” a less-than-thrilled Jordan said while mugging for a photo with a similarly less-than-thrilled Harmon.
The next pulse of votes is scheduled to be released this Thursday afternoon.
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