Shannon Grove took an early lead over Ken Mettler in the 32nd district assembly race and this morning came out on top.
The stark contrast in Tuesday night's victory parties between 32nd assembly district candidate Shannon Grove and Ken Mettler, both Republicans says it all.
Grove started the night with nearly a 40% lead over Mettler with the absentee ballots coming in.
"Doesn't look real good at this point," said Mettler. "We'll just have to wait and see all the returns, but it is what it is."
I'm honored, you know, i'm really honored.
Of the two, Mettler had more name recognition but not always for positive reasons.
In late 2008, he was accused of punching an opponent to Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage, at a rally on Stockdale Highway.
It was caught on tape, but Mettler denied he hit the man.
And this year, he was accused of asking a woman named Shannon Holloway to run for the same seat, supposedly to confuse voters and lessen votes for his main opponent, Shannon Grove.
Then in April he was accused of misusing funds for the California Republican Assembly when he was the president.
The organization cleared him of any wrongdoing.
He believes all of this hurt him.
"Well obviously it has hurt and it looks like in the polling, yes," said Mettler. "And unfortunately, sometimes you can't get all the facts out."
"I've gone out and talked to thousands of people and they are tired of being negative, they are tired of the negativeness that comes with politics," said Grove.
