Early election results show that Mike Barbanica and Shanelle Scales-Preston are neck-and-neck in the competitive race for Contra Costa County’s District 5 supervisor seat — open for the first time after the incumbent’s 24-year tenure.
Barbanica and Scales-Preston — who are councilmembers in Antioch and Pittsburg, respectively — are vying to represent the county’s northern waterfront, encompassing Martinez, Hercules, Pittsburg and a sliver of Antioch, as well as a dozen other unincorporated communities.
Election officials had counted exactly 41,000 ballots by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
These early unofficial tallies were limited to vote-by-mail ballots and voters who cast their ballots in-person prior to Election Day, and final results are not expected for several days, as mail-in ballots continue to arrive and in-person election day votes are counted.
Initial tallies for this general election aren’t too dissimilar from the outcome of the 2024 primary; out of a total 37,000 ballots cast in March, Barbanica earned 38.7% of the votes, while 35.1% of voters backed Scales-Preston.
Barbanica, 55, was elected to the Antioch City Council in 2020. The retired Pittsburg police lieutenant and owner of a real estate property management company largely campaigned on law-and-order priorities — advocating for stronger crime control, new solutions for homelessness and blight and fiscal responsibility for the county’s $5 billion budget.
Scales-Preston, 46, is a sixth-year Pittsburg City Councilmember who has worked for California’s 10th Congressional District since 2001. Her campaign for the Board of Supervisors focused on the power of fostering collaboration to address both systemic and immediate challenges — such as expanding affordable housing, improving transportation and supporting youth and job programs for marginalized communities.
The District 5 seat is being vacated by Supervisor Federal Glover, who announced his retirement in December. Glover was the first African American elected to the highest county office, and remains the only person of color in the board’s history.
This Board of Supervisors election was flooded with nearly $1.2 million in campaign contributions and independent expenditures from both police and labor groups, according to finance records reporting 2024 transactions through Sept. 21.
A little more than a month before Tuesday’s election, the election was awash with independent expenditures — an unlimited spending mechanism separate from a candidate’s own campaign, which advocacy groups frequently use to bolster their influence in policy-making.
This financial support, in part, illustrates the starkly different ways Barbanica and Scales-Preston, 46, campaigned to govern these diverse communities, which contend with different needs for public safety, homelessness, industry regulation and development.
By Sept. 21, a political action committee in support of Barbanica collected more than $433,000, funded primarily by groups representing hundreds of police officers, dispatchers and law enforcement officials across the Bay Area, according to campaign filings. Subsequent ads, mailers and a website backing Barbanica were largely financed by the Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, on top of support from the county’s firefighters union, police associations in six Contra Costa County cities and luxury residential developers boasting projects in Antioch, Danville, Livermore and Pleasanton.
Additionally, the Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association had dumped another $340,000 by Sept. 21 into a separate committee of “concerned citizens” directly opposing Scales-Preston that has paid for a slew of ads, mailers and billboards.
During this same timeframe, independent expenditures backing Scales-Preston were just shy of $402,500 — funding ads, polling and text campaigns through groups representing labor groups for steamfitters, forgers and other industrial trade workers, according to campaign filings.
These dollars have come, in part, from the Steamfitters Local 342 PAC Fund, IBEW 302 Community Candidates PAC, East Bay Action and the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 104. Scales-Preston was raised in a union household and said she understands the importance of ensuring that these jobs continue to provide safe working conditions and livable wages.
