Legislative District 23 — which spans four counties and includes Buckeye — could be split in the House and an incumbent says it’s soon to tell in Senate.
Candidates for two House seats in that district are incumbent Mariana Sandoval (D-Goodyear), incumbent Michele Pena (R-Yuma) and Matias Rosales (D-San Luis).
Results show Pena is leading with 16,091 votes, or 34.%. Sandoval is vying for the second seat with 15,771 votes, or 34%, and Rosales is sitting at the back of the pack with 14,941 votes, or 32%.
Broken down by county, Pena garnered 9,121 votes in Maricopa, 2,147 votes in Pima, just four votes in Pinal and 4,819 votes in Yuma.
Meanwhile Sandoval obtained 8,030 votes in Maricopa, 3,851 votes in Pima, 43 votes in Pinal and 3,847 votes in Yuma.
Rosales was still at a polling site when InBuckeye called him for comment with 100 people in line. He garnered 7,454 votes in Maricopa, 3,541 votes in Pima, 41 votes in Pinal and 3,905 votes in Yuma.
Pena was sitting with a group of volunteers whom she said had “tirelessly sacrificed to fight in this election” when the first round of results came out.
“I want to thank all of our supporters and folks who have worked and helped in any way,” Pena said.
Meanwhile Sandoval told InBuckeye she was cautiously optimistic.
“I think it’s early still,” Sandoval said. “There’s still a lot of votes to be counted and things can change as soon as new batches get counted. I think it’s still too soon to call anything. So, we’ll see how the votes turn out.”
Incumbent Brian Fernandez echoed the same message in the LD 23 Senate race.
Current results show Fernandez with 17,139 votes, or 52%, while the incumbent Michelle Altherr (R-Goodyear) has garnered 15,683 votes, or 48%.
“Just like everyone, I’m optimistic but I’m also cautious,” Fernandez said. “We had a lot of people who brought their votes in early, but there were a lot of people that didn’t and it’s going to take a long time to count these ballots. Even thought I would love to know today to know what we’re going to see in the next year, I think it’s going to be a couple days at least before we’re start getting the finalities in this race.”
Fernandez’s opponent told InBuckeye despite being down she is keeping the faith.
“The one thing I didn’t want to be is down but it’s kind of like a thought that I would be so just got to walk in that faith and know that things are going to turn around,” Altherr said. “it’s not by much in the scheme of things. Somebody had be to down on the initial so I’m just going to stand in my faith.”
