Huffman, Roberts take North Coast Race

NOTE: This article was updated on Wednesday, June 6, 2012.

and were the top two vote-getters in Tuesday night's primary tallies and will face each other in the Nov. 4 general elections.

In addition, extension question passed by a 60.2 to 39.8 percent margin.

Huffman, who took 37 percent of the vote, was "feeling great"  at an election night party on the campus of Dominican University in San Rafael, he said.

"This was a long journey, a lot of hard work," Huffman said.
"Friends from every part of my life — my neighbors, my political friends, fellow parents at our kids'  schools, people from all over the district — they all came through and worked very hard to put us in this position.

"This strong showing is incredible," Huffman added.

Roberts, a San Francisco securities broker who lives in Tiburon, took 15.4 percent of the vote, according to Bay City News Service. That topped the total for Democrat Norman Solomon by just over 1 percent, BCN said.

Bay City News Service reported that Solomon had 13.9 percent of the overall vote in preliminary results.

Anti-war activist Solomon, of Inverness Park in West Marin, had been the favorite to win second place.

Despite his overall third place finish, Solomon had the lead over Roberts in Sonoma and Marin counties, according to the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters website, and the Marin County Registrar of Voters website.

Huffman said he was ready for the general elections matchup.

"We're going to run hard all the way to November, and the great thing is that we don't have to change anything because this campaign is built to last," Huffman said. "We have a broad base of support, because I wasn't trying to pit one group against others.

"We had a broad outreach to the whole community and it was positive and issue-based, and I think it's a winning formula," he said.

Also competing in the North Coast congressional race were Democrats Susan Adams, Stacey Lawson, Tiffany Renee, William Courtney, Larry Fritzlan and Andy Caffrey; Republican Mike Halliwell; and unaffiliated candidates Brooke Clarke and John Lewallen.

In other Sonoma County races: Incumbent Shirlee Zane topped Tim Smith for supervisor in the 3rd District; John Sawyer and Susan Gorin will have a runoff in November for supervisor in the 1st District, Sonoma Valley; and incumbent Efren Carillo was reelected supervisor in the 5th District over Ernest Carpenter and Veronica Jacobi.

For vote totals on the supervisors' races, see the county elections website.

Voter turnout in Sonoma County was low at 37 percent of the county's 248,216 registered voters. That included 10.8 percent of votes in the precinct and 26.2 percent absentee ballots, according to the county elections website.

To read the Press Democrat article on the election results, click here.

Bay City News Service contributed to this report.