Beall's Landslide Continues to Grow

Tony Beall's landslide just got bigger.

As votes continue to be counted in the 2012 general election for Rancho Santa Margarita City Council, Beall's domination of Carol Gamble and Kenney Hrabik actually grew in the last two days.

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Election night results, with all 31 precincts reported, had Beall winning with 44.9 percent of the total votes cast, a total of 10,095 votes. His total included more than 700 additional votes after the absentee votes began being included.

As of Friday morning, there are still 4,075 votes in RSM that need to be counted.

It's unlikely additional votes will impact the winners of local seats, and it certainly won't knock Beall off the dais for the next four years. Even if all the remaining votes were to go to Gamble and Hrabik he would still finish in the top two. Gamble leads Hrabik by 3,116.

Beall currently has 10,856 total. Here are the current results for the four-year seats, of whom voters were to select two:

• Tony Beall: 10,856 votes, 45.0 percent
• Carol Gamble: 8,197 votes, 34.0 percent
• Kenney Hrabik: 5,081 votes, 21.1 percent

Here are the results for the two-year seat, of whom voters were to select one:

• Brad McGirr: 5,854 votes, 41.3 percent
• Larry McCook: 4,529 votes, 32.0 percent
• Glenn Acosta: 3,780 votes, 26.7 percent

On election night, Beall held a 2,441-vote advantage over runner-up Gamble, who was also elected to a four-year term on the council. Beall's margin over Gamble grew to 2,659. If Gamble receives 960 of the remaining votes, or 23.5 percent, she will clinch second place. Additionally, Hrabik—who has been named on only 21.1 percent of the ballots thus far—would need to be named on 76.5 percent of the remaining ballots.

Beall's victory over Hrabik, the businessman with whom he has had a contentious relationship during the campaign, increased from 5,343 votes to 5,775.

Although Beall won in a landslide, he still has not broken Jerry Holloway's record for most votes in a council election for RSM, though he did displace Holloway's second-highest total.

However, if Beall continues to win 45 percent of the vote, he will beat Holloway's record by amore than 1,500 votes, with 12,689.

Holloway had 11,124 votes in 2008, even though it only represented 39.4 percent of the votes cast. Holloway received 10,809 votes in 2004, which is now the third-highest vote total in city history.

Holloway, who chose not to run for reelection, also won 55.6 percent of the vote in a 2002 election for a two-year seat, though he was running against only one other opponent, Christy Riley. That year, Holloway garnered 5,203 votes.

That total was displaced by McGirr, who ran on a slate with Beall and Gamble and faced two opponents.

McCook, who received 4,326 votes in 2010, was shy of that total on election night (4.216) but managed to surpass it by 203 votes thus far.

Other races

Capistrano Unified School District, Trustee Area 2 (vote for 1)

• Jim Reardon: 7,427 votes, 49.1 percent
• Carol McCormick: 3,624 votes, 24.0 percent
• Don Franklin Richardson: 3,015 votes, 19.9 percent
• Michele Taylor-Bible: 1,054 votes, 7.0 percent

Saddleback Valley Unified School District (vote for 3)

• Don Sedgwick: 39,599 votes, 29.5 percent
• Suzie Swartz: 39,504 votes, 29.4 percent
• Ginny Fae Aitkins: 35,576 votes, 26.5 percent
• Earl Carraway: 19,514 votes, 14.5 percent

Member of the State Assembly, 73rd District (vote for 1)

• Diane Harkey: 108,323 votes, 64.6 percent
• James Corbett: 59,428 votes, 35.4 percent

U.S. House of Representatives, District 49 (vote for 1)

• Darrell Issa (Rep): 120,184 votes, 58.9 percent
• Jerry Tetalman (Dem): 83,704 votes, 41.1 percent

Santa Margarita Water District, Director (vote for 3)

• Betty Olson: 25,632 votes, 27.4 percent
• Charley Wilson: 23,387 votes, 25.0 percent
• Chuck Gibson: 19,833 votes, 21.2 percent
• Fred Carr: 12,745 votes, 13.6 percent
• Stan Dziecielski: 12,121 votes, 12.9 percent

Municipal Water District of Orange County, Director Division 6 (vote for 1)

• Jeff Thomas: 45,256 votes, 61.7 percent
• Don Chadd: 28,060 votes, 38.3 percent