Dantona slips past Foy in Ventura County supervisor’s race

Ventura County ballots were still being counted Wednesday in the volatile race for the 4th District supervisor’s seat, with political strategist Jim Dantona ahead of businessman Peter Foy by a razor-thin margin.

Dantona led with 50.10% of the vote over Foy’s 48.95% after precinct and early absentee ballots were tallied.

But both candidates acknowledged that the 309-vote difference could swing either way once a crush of absentee and provisional ballots dropped off at the polls Tuesday are added to the totals.

That could take up to a week, said Ventura County Clerk and Recorder Philip J. Schmit. Countywide, about 32,000 absentee ballots were cast, including an estimated 1,000 by 4th District voters in Simi Valley and Moorpark, he said.

“That’s a very large, abnormal number for a mid-term election,” Schmit said. “It will take us a while to get through them.”

Renovation bonds were approved in two Oxnard school districts but were rejected by voters in Oak Park.

Santa Paula defeated a push to build low-income housing for 150 families but approved a second measure requiring voter approval for any development that exceeds 81 acres.

A hard-fought Ventura campaign to approve a quarter-cent sales tax increase for police services went down in defeat, falling five percentage points short of the two-thirds vote needed.

Ventura Councilman William Fulton said the city would consider other options, including cutting some city programs or raising fees, to get more officers on the street.

“We called attention to the issue and we can feel good about that,” Fulton said. “But 38.5% of voters said you haven’t quite made the sale.”

In the supervisor’s contest, the candidates offered differing views on how remaining votes would break.

Foy said he is confident the remaining absentee ballots would follow the pattern of mail-in ballots sent before election day. The early absentee vote went largely his way, giving him an 11-point advantage over Dantona.

But Dantona said that people who wait until election day to drop off ballots aren’t the conservative voters who make up Foy’s base.

“People who walked them up were people who simply had not made up their minds until the last minute, or who didn’t want to pay for postage,” Dantona said. “And I believe my message resonated with the average voter.”

Dantona, 58, a lifelong Democrat, emphasized his political experience and a broad platform that included growth control, constituent service and bringing more state and federal dollars to the district.

The Republican Foy, 50, focused more tightly on increasing funding for the Sheriff’s Department, denying benefits to illegal immigrants and rooting out inefficiency in county government.

Foy on Wednesday said his vote totals would have been higher if more of the conservative Republican base had come to the polls.

A portion of that bloc stayed home, he said, while Ventura County Democrats turned out in droves.

“Conservatives were struggling across the nation,” Foy said. “What we saw in our county is that many voters, especially independents, voted Democratic this time around.”

Jack Miller, a political science professor at Moorpark College, said Foy may be partially correct. But Miller noted that Simi Valley’s longtime Republican Congressman Elton Gallegly was easily reelected.

“Dantona couldn’t have done any better,” Miller said. “The question is whether Foy could have gotten more of his base activated.”

catherine.saillant@latimes.com