Sheriff Steve Bernal wins another term over challenger, Deputy Scott Davis.

Like many sheriff’s deputies, Scott Davis normally starts his day around noon based on his work schedule. On June 5, Election Day, he started early with an Americano and slice of reduced-fat coffee cake from Starbucks for breakfast, because he had business to attend to at Salinas City Hall, where he represents District 1 as a city councilmember.

He was still at a City Council meeting Tuesday evening as a few dozen supporters gathered for an election night party at the headquarters of the Deputy Sheriffs Association in Oldtown Salinas. (The existence of that office itself has become a campaign issue, with concerns about why and when the DSA started renting the space, and why the DSA was paying Christian Schneider, also a Davis campaign consultant.)

A full bar in the back was serving liquor and DJs in front were hoping for a dance party: “That’s the vision,” said DJ Noel Saucedo. “Hopefully they get great news and everyone wants to dance.”

But an hour later, with early returns showing Davis trailing behind the boss, Sheriff Steve Bernal, by a margin of 2-to-1, there was no dancing happening. (Saucedo did play “I Shot the Sheriff,” however.)

“We’re optimistic,” Davis says. “It may be a couple days before we find out.”

Meanwhile, just a few miles away, Bernal was already giving a warm acceptance speech to dozens of smiling supporters at Zeph’s One Stop. “I wasn’t nervous, I felt really good, and confident we ran a good campaign,” Bernal says. “But I didn’t think the results would be this good.”

By the end of the evening, the numbers were holding strong, with 18 percent of the vote counted. Bernal was an underdog candidate in 2014 when he ran as a deputy in a four-way race and unseated former sheriff Scott Miller.

Bernal inherited a lawsuit filed by inmates alleging improper medical care at the county jail, and early in his tenure implemented a staffing plan that ran counter to what he’d promised deputies during the campaign – but earned the approval of a federal judge in upholding the county’s terms of a settlement to improve conditions at the jail.

Bernal also offered a desk in the jail to federal immigration officials from ICE, a decision he maintains he believed was in the interest of public safety.

“I felt like I was doing the right thing. Having ICE in the jail, I kept them out of the community,” Bernal says. California’s sanctuary state law, SB 54, forced him to change that practice, and ICE no longer has a dedicated desk at the jail.

Bernal thinks Davis’ campaign strategy of positioning himself as the Democrat in a nonpartisan race was a bad call. “When you run for a nonpartisan office, if you run as a Republican, if you run as a Democrat, it should throw up some red flags,” he says. “Those offices are nonpartisan for a reason.

“You can’t be too far right, you can’t be too far left in this job. I’ve learned a lot from [U.S. Congressman] Jimmy Panetta. Jimmy Panetta belongs to a party, and he’s right there on the aisle where he can reach over and shake someone’s hand and say, ‘Let’s talk.’”