With Final Shasta County Election Results In, Supervisors For Districts 1 and 5 Won’t Be Decided Until The Fall

Over 52,000 registered Shasta County voters cast ballots in the June 7 primary election. Despite the deeply contentious nature of Shasta County’s primary election this year, voter turnout hovered around forty-six percent, the same percentage as in the last local primary in 2018.

County elections were a face-off between politically experienced candidates and political newcomers who sometimes described themselves as anti-establishment. With election results final, as of June 27, it’s clear that experienced Shasta County candidates beat out anti-establishment candidates in almost every local race, including those for district attorney, sheriff-coroner, superintendent of schools and county clerk.

Results are not yet clear for the two open seats for county supervisors of District 1 and 5. No candidate in either race received the required fifty percent plus one vote that would have made victory after the primary decisive. Instead, the top two candidates in each race will move forward to the fall general election ballot.

Who wins the supervisor races is of great importance to Shasta County, where the recent recall and replacement of long-time county supervisor Leonard Moty swung the board from a conservative majority to what some see as an ultra-conservative or constitutionalist majority. Over a few short months, that’s led to the ousting of the county’s public health officer and the resignation of the county’s CEO, among other changes.

Despite inconclusive results, Redding City Council member and business owner Erin Resner won a plurality of votes over political newcomer and business owner Kevin Crye in the race for the District 1 Supervisor seat, receiving forty-eight percent of the vote to Crye’s forty-two percent. Voting was complicated by the presence of a third candidate, Kymberly Vollmers, who officially dropped out of the race shortly before election day but whose name still appeared on the ballot. She garnered almost nine percent of the vote despite having endorsed Resner in her resignation speech.

The primary election result in District 5 was also inconclusive, but narrowed a slate of five candidates down to two. Anderson City Mayor Baron Browning came out first, with forty-three percent of the vote, with political newcomer Chris Kelstrom not far behind, with thirty-six percent.

District supervisor races are decided only by voters from those specific districts. In rural Shasta County, that means the overall number of votes cast for each of the county supervisor races was relatively low, with only 481 votes between Resner and Crye and only 662 between Browning and Kelstrom.

The California general election will be held November 8, 2022.

Annelise Pierce is Shasta Scout’s Editor and a Community Reporter covering government accountability, civic engagement, and local religious and political movements. You can contact her at annelisepierce@shastascout.org