Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez went ahead of her challenger, Councilmember Ryan Keim, for the first time Friday with the latest unofficial election results released by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters Office.
Sanchez was up by just 31 votes with 37,982 or 50.02% of the votes counted so far, and Keim was at 37,951 or 49.98%, according the latest totals from the registrars office.
Keims early lead steadily eroded with each release of additional results over the past week. Wednesday he was ahead by 71 votes, down from 239 votes on Monday and a previous lead of 591.
A number of factors contribute to the slow march toward a final result. Ballots can be mailed through Election Day, so some spend days in the hands of the postal service. Others may be missing a signature, and the registrar allows the voter time to correct that.
As of Friday night, 56,000 ballots from across San Diego County remained to be counted, according to the Registrar of Voters Office. It was unknown how many of those could be from Oceanside.
All results are unofficial until the official canvass of the election, which is due by Dec. 5. Other Oceanside results remained unchanged Friday.
Phyllis Dominguez, a small business owner and 22-year Oceanside resident, was the apparent winner of the city treasurer position, with incumbent City Treasurer Victor Roy in second place and Jack Fernandes third.
Jimmy Figueroa, a local nonprofit leader, was ahead of the nearest other candidate, Laura Bassett, for the District 3 seat now held by Keim. Other candidates in that district are Tom DeMooy and Austin Sorensen.
In District 4, incumbent Peter Weiss was well ahead of his challengers, Amber Kae Niuatoa and Omar Hashimi.
And in the Oceanside Unified School District, two incumbent board members were well ahead of their challengers.
Area 5 Incumbent Trustee Mike Blessing, a retired Oceanside city planning director and incumbent school board member, had a 7.7 percentage point lead over Rosie Higuera.
Area 2 Incumbent Eleanor Evans, an educator, was ahead of Emily Ortiz Wichmann by almost 4 percentage points.