Incumbent supe Fernando Armenta blown away by Luis Alejo.

Fernando Armenta stepped out of his campaign office in the Creekbridge Village shopping center on election night to get some fresh air.

The polls had just closed, and the preliminary results were in: Armenta was trailing far behind Assemblyman Luis Alejo in the three-way race to represent District 1 on the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, with just 27 percent of the vote. 

He was leading Salinas Councilman Tony Barrera by just 21 votes, and Alejo had 46 percent. By most indications, he was done.

“These, to me, look like absentee votes,” Armenta said, looking at the election results on his phone, trying to explain the margins. 

Meanwhile, the chatter of dozens of volunteers, family members and friends, who’d put hundreds of hours of work into this campaign since last December, lingered in the background while America’s Got Talent played on a TV.

The early count revealed Alejo has a good chance of ousting the longtime incumbent from his seat, despite being a recent transplant to Salinas; Alejo moved here from Watsonville last year, just to run for this office as he terms out of the Assembly. Armenta has held the seat since 2000. 

Alejo was across town celebrating his advantage at the Salinas Brickhouse, with a cheerful crowd that included volunteers as well as his wife, Watsonville City Councilmember Karina Cervantez Alejo, who came in a distant second in a four-way race to replace her husband in Assembly District 30. (Anna Caballero, Alejo’s predecessor, led handily with 46 percent of the votes.)

“I feel so proud because we worked very hard,” Alejo says. “We were going against a longtime incumbent, but we were the ones working every day in the district and in the community.”

Former Salinas Councilman Sergio Sanchez—who placed third in his attempt to unseat Armenta from the same position in 2012—arrived to the Brickhouse after the 8:15pm results were in and greeted Alejo.

Sanchez lauded Alejo’s accomplishments at the local and state level, where his legislative efforts included raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour, securing drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants and launching an audit of the King City Police Department.

Alejo’s campaign for county supervisor has been fueled by special interest groups, and money he’s raised for a campaign committee to run for State Senate in 2018, a committee that is still active and taking donations. (Armenta’s campaign also received thousands of dollars from local PACs, while Barrera raised just a small sum from locals, and even turned down contributions he deemed too shady.)

On election night, Armenta raised questions regarding Alejo’s campaign against him.

Armenta had gotten Alejo campaign materials in his own mailbox blaming him for the county’s record-breaking youth homicide rate. 

“He could have just run with his record,” Armenta says, “but if you resort to desperation like this, you will not be a good role model. This was just to scare and confuse voters.” 

Armenta long touted his campaigning stamina and willingness to walk door to door all over the district during election season, something he does wearing his good luck charm, a large Native American medallion. 

Barrera, who was watching the results from home, did not immediately return calls to the Weekly. As of midnight, the latest results showed Barrera just two votes behind Armenta. 

This is Barrera’s second attempt to win the supervisor seat; in 2012, he came in second place in the primary, and then lost to Armenta in the general election in November.

The top two vote-getters will advance to the general election Nov. 8.