Amador County – Republican Assemblyman Ted Gaines succeeded to the State Senate for District 1 including Amador County and 11 other counties last night, with a special election victory over Democrat Ken Cooley. Unofficial results showed Gaines won by 34,000 votes, and took 63 percent of the vote.

Amador County Registrar of Voters Sheldon Johnson announced unofficial county results, with 100 percent of the precincts having been counted and tallied as of 9:23 p.m. Tuesday (Jan. 4) showing Gaines leading the vote in Amador County at 62 percent to 37 percent.

Gaines had 4,108 votes in Amador County, while Cooley had 2,448.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s website showed “semi-official results” from District 1 throughout the night Tuesday. Bowen’s site reported at 9:53 p.m. that with 63 percent of precincts reporting across District 1, Gaines led with 63 percent of the vote to Cooley’s 36 percent. That tally included 322 of a total 514 precincts partially reporting district-wide. It showed Gaines had 72,833 votes and Cooley had 42,365.

By 10:06 p.m., with 70 percent of precincts reporting, Gaines had 74,127 votes, and still held 63 percent of the vote, to Cooley’s 43,005 votes, a 31,000-vote margin.

By 10:22 p.m., Gaines kept the same 63 percent majority, with 83 percent of precincts reported, and 78,598 votes to 46,183 for Cooley, a 32,400-vote lead.

Gaines, the sitting District 4 State Assemblyman, held a presumed party line edge of about 11 points in District 1, whose registered Republican voters outnumbered Democrats by that percentage.

Another special election on Tuesday, limited to only Amador County, was a recall election of Lylis McCutcheon, a board member of the River Pines Public Utility District. After 100 percent of the precincts were reported Tuesday, the unofficial tally showed that 75 percent of the votes cast were in favor of McCutcheon’s recall, or 98 votes, versus the 32 votes against.

The other question in River Pines, her replacement, voters give the lone replacement candidate, Perry Hopkins a vote edge of 81-39 in favor, or 67 percent of the vote.

Registrar of Voters Sheldon Johnson said River Pines had 222 registered voters eligible to vote in the recall, and all of them had been sent vote-by-mail ballots. The initial tally at the closes of the polls at 8:02 p.m. showed the same number of ballots cast as when the Amador County election office tallied the 100 percent of precincts at 9:23 p.m.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.