SACRAMENTO — The battle for second place in the race for California state controller continues.
As of June 25, Board of Equalization member Betty Yee and Assemblymember John Perez, both Democrats, had 21.7 percent of the vote. Yee was ahead by 861 votes, 877,233 to 876,372, with 6,057 vote-by-mail, provisional and damaged ballots still unprocessed. According to the Secretary of State’s Office, all but four of the unprocessed ballots are in Lake County.
Under the new primary system, the top two vote-getters in the June 3 election go to the November general election, regardless of party. Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin is solidly in first place with 1,000,589 votes (24.8 percent), while fellow Republican David Evans, a chief financial officer, fell behind Yee and Perez with 848,816 votes (21.0 percent).
All 58 counties are required to report their full numbers by July 4.
The current controller is Democrat John Chiang, who will be in a November runoff with Republican Greg Conlon.