The fight for the Carson City Council's District 4 seat remained too close to call on Saturday night, with challenger John Hollaway holding a slim edge over incumbent Arleen Rojas as election officials kept working through the remaining ballots from the Nov. 3 election.
In the most recent update, released at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Hollaway, an entrepreneur, had collected 3,528 votes, or 51.73%, while Rojas stood at 3,292 votes, or 48.27%. Only 236 votes separated the two candidates.
The registrar's office published its initial semi-official results shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday. That first count covered all vote-by-mail ballots that had arrived by Election Day, along with every ballot cast at vote centers before polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Plenty of ballots are still waiting to be processed, including mail ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but have not yet arrived, as well as provisional and conditional ballots. Election officials have not said how many are still outstanding. The registrar intends to post fresh numbers each day until the count is finished, with certification tentatively planned for Nov. 27.
Speaking in an interview Wednesday, Hollaway framed the race as a test of the community's resolve. "I have so much passion for this community and it will be a moral win for Carson if we win this," he said, adding that residents have told him they need someone who is present and visible rather than "a ghost." He said he believes the community needs him and that he is prepared to sacrifice himself for it.
Rojas did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Hollaway has said he entered the race to "show up for the community," contending that District 4 has long been ignored by City Hall. "It's probably the part of the city that's been neglected and the most overlooked," he said in a previous statement. He has pledged to bring residents together through town hall meetings and to sit down with them to learn what they want, saying, "We need to have a city where people don't leave here to go to another city for something else."
If elected, Hollaway has said his agenda for his first 100 days in office would include meeting with city employees and with members of underserved communities.
Rojas, for her part, has described the lack of comprehensive public safety as Carson's most urgent problem. "Neighborhood security is the absolute foundation of a thriving city," she said in the Southern California News Group's Voter Guide, citing her role in establishing the city's Public Safety Task Force, reactivating the Safety First Act Now initiative and launching the Community Oriented Policing initiative to curb property crime and illegal street takeovers.
