Eddie Engram elected next Sonoma County sheriff, David Rabbitt reelected as 2nd District supervisor

Eddie Engram is set to become Sonoma County's next sheriff, prevailing in a three-way race in the June 7 primary with a historic outcome.

Engram, an assistant sheriff, will be the county's first Black sheriff. He added to his margin over the 50%-plus-one threshold in the latest results posted Tuesday evening.

“I am confident with the numbers that we have that I’ll be able to avoid runoff,” Engram said Tuesday. “I am extremely humbled by the honor of being elected and I look forward to honoring my promises as the sheriff of Sonoma County.”

Engram has received 50.33% of the 125,550 counted votes in the race as of Tuesday. His closest opponent in the race, Carl Tennenbaum, conceded Tuesday night.

Deva Proto, Sonoma County’s registrar of voters, estimated there are a couple hundred ballots left to be processed but said that number would likely not exceed 400.

The updated results also showed Supervisor David Rabbitt has secured reelection to his 2nd District seat, where he’ll begin his fourth term in January, when Engram takes office.

“I’m happy, and happy to be done in June,” Rabbitt said.

Rabbitt said all issues related to the current drought, homelessness and housing would take his immediate attention.

His closest opponent in the three-way primary for the 2nd District seat, Blake Hooper, would not concede Tuesday. Rabbitt received 53.01% of 27,153 counted votes, while Hooper received 41.75%.

Hooper, a Petaluma planning commissioner making his first bid for elected office, said he plans to wait until all ballots are counted.

“My team and I will be waiting until the vote count is officially concluded before making any statements toward a win or loss, especially when we are so close to a run off,” Hooper said in a text. “If this is the end, so be it, but we won’t make the determination for the Registrar of Voters.”

The 2nd District has 64,325 registered voters, according to Proto.

Countywide, turnout topped 45% with the latest results, including 137,441 counted ballots.

Sonoma County has 304,008 registered voters.

“Statistically it would be unlikely that the remaining ballots would change a race at this point,” Proto said. “But that’s not something we would speculate on. We are going to continue our process to certify the final results.”

Tennenbaum, a former San Francisco police sergeant had 29.17% of the vote in sheriff’s contest Tuesday, while Dave Edmonds, a retired sheriff’s captain, had 13.18% and the late Kevin Burke, the former Healdsburg police chief, had 7.32%.

Tennenbaum congratulated Engram while adding that the outcome shows “people really do want change.”

“I think he won it legitimately, but he just barely won,” Tennenbaum said. “Just over 50% voted for him, but just under 50% voted not for him.”

Latest results show civil litigator Oscar Pardo is on tap to be the next Sonoma County Superior Court judge in a race that had been close since election night.

He secured 53.31% of 118,229 votes while Joe Passalacqua, a defense attorney, had 55,205 votes.

They’re separated by 7,819 votes in Pardo’s favor.

Passalacqua initially had the lead on election night with a few hundred votes over his opponent. But as the days passed, Pardo took the lead and last week ended with him holding 52.52% of the votes.

Pardo and Passalacqua faced each other in one of two races for Sonoma County judicial seats.

In the other race, Superior Court Commissioner Laura Passaglia McCarthy defeated defense attorney John LemMon in a landslide victory with 82.28% of the vote.

Meanwhile, the race for Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools remains unchanged and is headed for a runoff between Amie Carter and Brad Coscarelli.

Carter received 43.55% of 116,858 counted votes by Friday and Coscarelli received 35.26%.

Staff Writer Colin Atagi contributed to this story.