Friday was the deadline for candidates to file papers with the elections department to get their name on the June primary ballot. There's at least two shoe-ins for local races.
The ballots haven't even been printed, but we already know who will be our next sheriff, our current Sheriff Donny Youngblood. That's because no one filed to run against him by the deadline. ”I really haven't thought a lot about whether I was going to have an opponent or not, but as we got to today what I realized I won't have to do is go out and get into debates with opponents, spend all your time trying to campaign and run an organization,” Youngblood said.
After 27 years of being Kern County's top prosecutor, District Attorney Ed Jagels is retiring from the position.
And as of Friday evening, prosecutor Lisa Green is the only name on the ballot. She is known for securing convictions in high-profile cases, such as the Vincent Brothers case.
As for the races where we will see a fight, democrat Fran Florez of Shafter, the mother of Shafter Senator Dean Florez, will go head to head, or chad to chad, against democrat Pete Parra, the father of former Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, for the seat she once held, in the 30th district.
And there are two republican candidates, Stephanie Campbell of Bakersfield and David Valadao, a Hanford dairyman, who is endorsed by incumbent Danny Gilmore.
There are four candidates for the state assembly 32nd district seat: Republicans Shannon Grove, Ken Mettler, and Shannon Holloway, and democrat Holly Spohn-Gross.
As for the state senate's 18th district seat, being vacated by Roy Ashburn there are three candidates who have filed locally, Richard Tripp and Jean Fuller on the GOP ticket and democrat Carter Pope.
Now while the filing deadline is over for most races, if an eligible incumbent is not running, the filing deadline is extended through March 17th.
