Susan Gorin, Lynda Hopkins reelected to Sononoma County Board of Supervisors

Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin claimed a decisive victory Tuesday night and her third term as 1st District supervisor in the race against Sonoma Councilman David Cook.

Gorin had 58% of the vote to 41% for Cook in early returns, a wide enough margin that Gorin said she did not expect updated tallies to change the outcome.

But Cook said he was not ready to concede the race, given that relatively few votes had been counted. He said he would wait until the final count “to see what the voters say.”

Gorin, a former Santa Rosa mayor and planning commissioner, said she was grateful to the voters who supported her in the district, which takes in eastern Santa Rosa and Sonoma Valley.

“I’ve been fielding a lot of congratulatory messages and emails today,” Gorin said. “They know I’ve worked hard.”

In the 5th District race, Supervisor Lynda Hopkins sailed to reelection and her second term representing the west county, prevailing over political newcomer and self-described taxpayer advocate Michael Hilber, of Roseland. He ran no organized campaign and didn’t report raising or spending any money.

Hopkins, 36, nonetheless, said she was “very, very honored and humbled by those results” and appeared surprised the margin was as wide as it was, with 78% of the vote to 21% for Hilber.

“Whenever you serve in office, some people will wind up disagreeing with you, so anybody running against an incumbent is going to have something to talk about,” she said.

The results were based on just 17,007 votes in the 1st District and 13,215 in the 5th - fewer than one-third of the registered voters in each district.

But the early results were decisive for at least two of the three incumbent women on the Board of Supervisors to claim reelection. Supervisor Shirlee Zane, on the other hand, was losing Tuesday to former Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey by 10 percentage points in the race for the 3rd District.

Cook said earlier Tuesday he had been feeling positive about the outcome.

The owner of Cook Vineyard Management, Cook, 53, has a long history of civic activity in the Sonoma area. He has twice been elected to the City Council, serving as mayor in 2015.

He said he campaigned door to door in areas of the district where voters may not be as familiar with him, including Oakmont, where Gorin has long lived, Rincon Valley and east Santa Rosa.

“To be honest with you, we just don’t know,” he said after the first batch of results. “We had a great campaign. We’ve engaged a lot of individuals. I really feel like I’ve won just by getting people engaged. We’ll see what happens with the other votes.”

The 1st District has 60,424 voters. At a busy polling place set up at the Glen Ellen fire station Tuesday, many said they had heard little about Cook’s bid to oust Gorin.

“I would say that the conversation I have heard suggests Susan Gorin has a pretty high level of support,” said Matthew Dickey, 68.

Gorin, 68, a longtime progressive politician with a long record in favor of land conservation and environmental preservation, is the only local elected leader to have lost her home in the 2017 fires and has confronted the rebuilding process alongside thousands of other county residents.

Emergency preparation, increased firefighter staffing and improved alert systems were among her campaign platforms, along with affordable housing and increased services for those who are experiencing homelessness.

Gorin congratulated Cook on a hard-fought campaign on her way to stop first at Zane’s election night party, and then at Coursey’s.

“I think the voting results really demonstrate how hard he worked,” she said of Cook. “So kudos to him for his efforts and his family, who supported him every step of the way.”

Hopkins enjoys widespread popularity in her west county district, where she has worked hard to give her constituents - most of whom live in small, unincorporated communities - greater voice in government.

She played a major role this winter in addressing a sprawling homeless encampment on the Joe Rodota Trail, pushing to identify steps that contributed to the Board of Supervisors’ adoption of a nearly $12 million suite of measures designed to help improve shelter availability for some of the more than 250 people living on the public trail.

Hopkins was not attending any political events Tuesday night, but said she had spent a rare Tuesday without a board meeting enjoying “scarce quality time with the kids and husband.”

She said it was gratifying to know that “4 out of 5 (voters) want me to continue serving.”

Posting on Facebook late Tuesday, Hopkins referenced the two jobs that consume her life: “Mothering three little humans” and “Fighting like hell” for west county.

“Being your Supervisor is, hands down, the hardest, best, most exhausting, most inspiring, most challenging, most energizing and life-giving job I’ve ever held. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I have the best 100,000 bosses in the world. Period.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.