November 4, 2020 at 1:08 pm

Local pastor and businessman Kevin Lincoln held a 1,940 vote lead over Michael Tubbs as of 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Lincoln is challenging Tubbs in the race for Stockton mayor. Lincoln currently has 25,744 votes to Tubbs’ 23,804, a difference of almost 4%. The gap has actually grown since the first results were announced Tuesday night, when he led by 455 votes.

Registrar of Voters Melinda Dubroff said late Tuesday that the county still had roughly 180,000 ballots to count, having already processed 130,000. Not all of the uncounted votes will contribute to the mayoral election, but with such a close margin, the race could swing either way.

Tubbs won the primary with 41.5% of the vote, almost double of Lincoln’s 21.6% amid a field of eight total candidates. Since nobody accrued more than 50% of the vote, Tubbs and Lincoln went to the general election.

Tubbs received a series of prominent endorsements, including Governor Gavin Newsom, Senator Kamala Harris, and activist Dolores Huerta. Lincoln’s major backers included San Joaquin County Supervisors Tom Patti, Bob Elliott, and Chuck Winn and the unions for the Stockton police, Stockton Unified School District police, Stockton firefighters, San Joaquin deputy sheriffs, and San Joaquin correctional officers.

The fundraising between the two candidates was also very close. Tubbs accrued a large war chest during the primary, and held more than $161,000 on June 30. Lincoln began to raise large amounts of money in August, and actually accumulated $40,000 more than Tubbs from July 1 to September 19. The two candidates then raised almost identical amounts in the last quarter.