Tight Race For Long Beach's 5th District: Preliminary Results

LONG BEACH, CA — Election day has come and gone in Long Beach, and early results show Kristina Duggan and Joni Ricks-Oddie leading in their respective races and for Long Beach City Council and a tight race between Megan Kerr and Ian Patton in the 5th District. (Scroll for real-time results.)

The most recent results from the Los Angeles County Clerk were updated at 3:35 a.m. Wednesday morning and reflect 23.4 percent of the county's votes.

The next ballots counted will be a random selection of batches for the one percent manual tally that will take place on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 10:15 a.m.

According to the County Clerk's office, voters should expect to see more updates between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 11. A full timeline for the Canvass Update Schedule is available at this link.

The final results won't be released until December, according to the schedule.

Long Beach City Council Election 2022

District 3:

As of 9:45 a.m. Wednesday morning Kristina Duggan led the race to represent Long Beach's 3rd District with 6,106 votes. Her competitor Kailee Caruso had 4,034 votes.

Caruso has been employed in the social services field in Orange County and Los Angeles County for 10 years. Caruso is the only Democrat-endorsed candidate in this race and she said she values transparency, accountability and utilizing the city budget in a financially responsible manner.

Duggan is a Long Beach native and has almost 30 years of experience in running small businesses focused on education, real estate, recreational athletics and mental health counseling. She has received endorsements from prominent city officials such as former Mayor Bob Foster and the Long Beach Police Officers Association.

District 5

As of 9:45 a.m. Wednesday morning the race to represent Long Beach's 5th District was extremely tight. Megan Kerr had a slight lead with 5,385 votes. Her competitor Ian Patton was close behind with 5,273 votes.

Kerr is the current Vice President of the Long Beach Unified School District and has taken part in multiple community service experiences such as a breakfast for the homeless, the LB Community College Child Development Program and the Alexandria House for women and children who have experienced homelessness, domestic violence and human trafficking.

Patton is a Bixby Knolls and Cal Heights native and is the co-founder of the Long Beach Reform Coalition. LBRC's mission is to build better resident responsiveness, transparency and accountability in City Hall. He supports lower taxation and regulations on small businesses.

District 9

As of 9:45 a.m. Joni Ricks-Oddie led the race to represent Long Beach's 9th District with 2,127 votes. Her competitor Ginny Gonzales had 1,146 votes.

Gonzales has 37 years of experience in accounting and auditing and said that the cost of living is the biggest problem facing Long Beach. She said she plans to address and improve the public trust between the residents and the Long Beach Police Department and reduce the homeless population in District 9 with additional homeless shelters.

Ricks-Oddie has been actively engaged in civic leadership and currently serves as Chair of the Long Beach Planning Commission. Oddie plans to be a fierce advocate for the quality-of-life priorities that protect residents and help communities thrive.

To follow live results for the Long Beach Mayoral race click this link.

Countywide Races

Sheriff

Retired Long Beach Police Department Chief Robert Luna led the race for Los Angeles County Sheriff by a large margin with 687,127 votes. Current LA Sheriff Alex Villanueva had 522,926 votes according to early results from the LA Registrar of voters.

To view full coverage and live results for the LA Sheriff's race click this link.

In the June primary, Villanueva and Luna topped the nine-person field of candidates, leading to today’s runoff.

Over the past century, only one incumbent sheriff in the county has lost a re-election bid. That was four years ago, when Villanueva achieved a stunning upset of Sheriff Jim McDonnell, riding to an election victory with strong backing from reform-minded community groups and Democrats.

He has openly criticized "progressive" policies and politicians, most notably District Attorney George Gascón, and assailed movements to "defund" law enforcement agencies.

Luna argued during the campaign that the sheriff's department is being "mismanaged" by Villanueva and said he will work to restore trust in the agency. He also touted his position as an outsider with no connections to the sheriff's department.

He said he will work to "modernize" the sheriff's department and its jail system and improve the mental well-being of deputies and employees.

Click these links to follow real-time results for the California statewide races of Governor and Controller.

Real-time results are below — use the scroll on the right to get to the race of your choice (they are in alphabetical order). Patch will be updating the results throughout the night as votes are tallied — refresh the page for the latest updates.