SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) - The race to win the seat for District 5 supervisor in Santa Barbara County is a tight contest as many expected.
As of the update posted by the Santa Barbara County Elections Office at 11:12 p.m. Tuesday night, Ricardo Valencia holds a slight lead over Maribel Aguilera by just 97 votes.
The update shows Valencia has 2,708 votes (50.65%), while Aguilera has 2,611 votes (48.84%).
Similar to the closeness of the vote totals, both candidates spent Election Night at watch parties located just a few blocks from each other.
Valencia gathered with supporters at The Garden Mediterranean Restaurant & Café, while Aguilera was at the Historic Santa Maria Inn.
As the early numbers came in, the two candidates both knew it was just the beginning of what will likely a long wait until the final outcome is determined.
"It'll be tough to wait to see the final results," said Valencia. "But ultimately, I understand how the process works. It takes weeks to know what's going to happen at the end. I've been on this campaign for over a year now, so I can wait a couple more weeks to get the final outcome."
"We just have to be patient," said Aguilera. "This is the democratic process that we all love, and so we just have to be patient. I expect good results, but we don't know what they will be at the end."
The two candidates are each vying to win the seat that represents the highly-populated region of Northern Santa Barbara County, including Santa Maria, the county's biggest city, as well as Guadalupe and the unincorporated community of Tanglewood.
The seat has been held by Steve Lavagnino, who was first elected in 2010, and is currently the longest running supervisor on the board.
Lavagnino decided to retire from the seat, leaving the office up for grabs for someone new to fill the position.
Valencia and Aguilera have been running for nearly one year and said Tuesday night they both proud of how they have campaigned for the position throughout the past several months.
"We worked really hard for the community for 11 months," said Valencia. "We started back in January. I have to thank my husband and my daughter. It was really a family affair to be on the campaign trail for 11 months, and we worked really hard. We got our message out there. We put up signs. We knocked on doors. We spoke with the voters and we really listened more than anything as to what was important and what they think are the biggest issues of the Fifth District. We worked hard. There wasn't a day that we didn't work on the campaign. We haven't had a weekend off in months and so there's nothing that I can say that we could have done because we worked hard every day and I'm super proud of the campaign. I'm super proud of all the work we did."
"What makes this campaign so special is that we have a team of high school students, community college students, folks from all ages, all backgrounds, with the commitment to invest in affordable housing, affordable childcare, living wages for workers, challenging the ICE activity," said Valencia. "H aving people who are seeing the inequalities that are taking place in our country, but want better for working families, t. hat's what makes this campaign so inspirational to so many people. Why so many people that have been voted in the past are starting to vote and people that want to stay engaged in the civic process, where we don't want to just stop at election night. We want to keep working for working families throughout the year."
In the June Primary Election, three candidates ran to earn a spot in the November General Election.
Aguilera, a Santa Maria-based based attorney and current Santa Maria City Councilmember, Valencia, a Santa Maria High School teacher Santa Maria-Bonita School Board member and Cory Bantilan, who has served as Lavagnino's Chief of Staff the past 15 years.
After nearly 9,000 votes were cast, Valencia came out in first place with 3,432 votes, Aguilera finished in second with 2,553 votes, while Bantilan was third with 1,975 votes.
After finishing in the two top positions in the primary, both Valencia and Aguilera advanced to the General Election.
Valencia, who was raised in both Guadalupe and Santa Maria, is running on a campaign centered around affordability, particularly housing, youth/community wellbeing, economic development/jobs and environmental protection.
Aguilera, was raised in Santa Maria and is centering her campaign on affordable housing, public safety, youth investment and infrastructure.
The winner of the election will be sworn into office on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2027.
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