Dawn Addis of Morro Bay leads in the race for the newly drawn Assembly District 30.

Among the more unusual races in the county this June was for the newly drawn state Assembly District 30, which stretches from part of Santa Cruz County, down the coast of Monterey County and into San Luis Obispo County. 

The assemblymember who’s long represented the Monterey Peninsula is Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, but when the new state Assembly maps were approved last December, Scotts Valley was out, and parts of San Luis Obispo County were in. Edged out on the southern coast (Big Sur) was Robert Rivas, whose District 29 moved inland.

The initial reporting of results in all three counties showed Dawn Addis, a city councilmember in Morro Bay, with a sizable lead of 44.7-percent of the nearly 60,000 votes counted. Second was Vicki Nohrden—who is based in Carmel, and is the only Republican in the five-candidate race— with 31.9 percent of the vote. In a distant third was Seaside city councilmember Jon Wizard, with 10.7 percent of the vote. 

Before the first results came in, Wizard’s election night party at The Oven on Broadway in Seaside was abuzz with good vibes. Attendees included Matt Huerta, a local housing advocate, Salinas City Councilmember Anthony Rocha and Monterey Peninsula College board member Yuri Anderson. 

There was just over a dozen people in attendance, and a few more kept trickling in. Even after the initial results were announced the mood was ebullient. When asked about his place in the race, Wizard said he was hoping for a better result as ballots were counted, adding, “It’s not done by any stretch, but we still have some catching up to do.”

Addis didn’t respond to a request for comment after the first results were reported, but noted earlier in the day in an interview that one thing that struck her while campaigning was how much in common the new district faces in terms of the issues it’s facing, water scarcity being one of them. 

And while it seems clear Norhrden will be in a runoff in November against Addis, it’s not clear it will be much of a race: More than 68 percent of the initial votes counted went for Democratic candidates for the seat. 

A cohort of real estate and agricultural interests called Fighting for Our Future spent at least $377,700 supporting another candidate's race—Zoë Carter of Monterey—and another $135,700 opposing Addis. Despite those massive expenditures, initial reports show Carter garnering only 8.6 percent of the votes so far.