Bob Tiffany is leading in a tight, five-way race for County Supervisor in District 4 over local farmer Robert Gibson, retired foreman operator Keith Snow and business owners Mike Mansmith and Dan Valcazar.
As of 10:13pm Nov. 3—the last time election officials updated results—Tiffany had 1,974 votes to Mansmith’s 1,605, which might be enough to drive him to victory.
Gibson had 17 percent (906 ballots) of the votes, Alcazar tallied nine percent (487) and Snow had nearly four percent (195).
Tiffany said he wasn’t exactly sure how things would shake out but it wasn’t a shocker that one of the candidates didn’t run away with the race.
“It’s really not surprising to me that (the vote) was spread out through all five of us,” Tiffany said.
A race between five candidates would normally take place during the primary election. But Jim Gillio announced that he was resigning from the seat at the end of this year, leaving it wide open for the candidates.
The winner of District 4 will complete the two years left on the term started by Gillio, who was elected to the board in 2018.
Tiffany talked about his experience campaigning for the first time including how short of a window they had because of Gillio’s sudden resignation announcement. All the candidates had until the end of July to make a decision to run for the D4 seat.
Tiffany said he had less than three months to campaign and a strong committee that supported him, giving him all the confidence going into Election Day.
“From my first experience, I think it went pretty well,” he said.
Tiffany said he feels good about his position in the standings but he knows the results are not final. The first-time politician mentioned that there’s going to be a lot of catching up in the first few days after he joins the board of supervisors.
“I’m new to the whole situation, so I need to get up to speed on everything and there’s a lot to learn,” he said.
San Benito County is dealing with several issues and Tiffany said that his top priority is getting through the Covid-19 pandemic as safely as possible. He wants the county to recover economically but he also wants to bring in more economic development.
“There’s many areas that we need to address and I would look forward to joining the others on the board and trying to see what we can do to move forward in a positive way,” he said.
