News Update

Razor thin lead for second place in likely runoff race for California state superintendent

The contest to see which challenger will face incumbent State Supterintent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond in a likely runoff election in November has gotten even closer, with a new second-place finisher; an unknown number of votes are still left to be counted.

Thurmond hasn’t gotten any closer since election day on June 7 to the 50% margin required to win without a runoff election. His share is still 45.7%, with 1.53 million votes.

But second and third places have changed. George Yang, a software engineer from Menlo Park and former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2014, is now 231 votes ahead of Ainye Long, a math teacher and department head in San Francisco Unified School District, as of the noon update on Friday. Both have 11.6% of the vote. Close behind, with 11.5% – 3,936 votes behind Yang – is Lance Christensen, who has been an education policy expert with the conservative California Policy Center.

On election night, Long had a 1,800 vote lead over Yang.

The California Secretary of State’s Office has not estimated the number of uncounted votes. They could include thousands of provisional ballots – those that have to be individually inspected – and ballots mailed on election day.