The three Democrats running for Encinitas City Council maintained their leads in new election results released Friday night by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters Office that didn’t much change the percentages of the vote totals in any of the races.
The mayoral race between Rimga Viskanta and independent incumbent Mayor Bruce Ehlers is the tightest race. She is up 67 votes, down from a 73-vote edge Thursday night.
In District 3, Democrat Arielle Golden widened her lead against Republican Ed Sprague, and is now up 109 votes, compared to Thursday’s 96-vote difference. And in District 4, Democrat Brad Lefkowits maintained his significant lead over Republican incumbent Marco San Antonio. He’s now up 856 votes, compared to an 803-vote lead he had on Thursday.
The count so far consists of almost 22,000 ballots cast in the mayor’s race and over 5,000 in each council race. It’s unclear how many ballots remain to be counted in Encinitas. Countywide, there are a projected 390,000 left to count out of nearly 1.3 million cast.
San Diego County voting officials expect to post additional updates Monday evenings and have until Dec. 3 to certify the election results. The winners will be sworn into new terms or into office next month to represent Encinitas’ 60,000 residents.
The races are technically nonpartisan, but party affiliation can affect fundraising and get-out-the-vote campaigns as well as any number of positions affecting city government.
Viskanta, current San Dieguito Union High School District trustee, and Ehlers have been locked in the tightest race of the three Encinitas elections.
In Cardiff’s District 3, Golden, the former chair of the North County Food Policy Council, and Ed Sprague, a retired firefighter and former Olivenhain Municipal Water District board member, are running to replace Councilmember Joy Lyndes, who is retiring when her term ends next month.
In eastern District 4, which includes New Encinitas and Olivenhain, Lefkowits is a landscape designer and member of the Urban Forest Advisory Committee and Marco San Antonio was appointed to the seat in 2025 to fill a vacancy.
Check back Monday night for an update.