The first election night report rolled in a few minutes ago, and while the majority of votes have yet to be counted, we find no big surprises in this initial sampling.

Mary Burke leads opponent Evan Schwartz in the race to succeed Fifth District Humboldt County Supervisor Steve Madrone with nearly 75% of the early returns to Schwartz’s 25%.

The only other contested race at the county level is for the job of assessor, where Audrey Hanks, the current deputy assessor-valuation, leads opponent Ben Larson by an even larger margin: 79.5% to 20.5%.

Every other county office-holder up for re-election is running uncontested, so the Outpost offers its preemptory congratulations to Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo, Auditor-Controller Mychal Evenson, Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes, Treasurer-Tax Collector Amy Christensen and Superintendent of Schools Michael Davies-Hughes.

The results of the statewide races won’t be known for some time yet, as our friends at CalMatters explained earlier today. Humboldt’s early returns favor Democrat Tom Steyer for governor (28%), followed by Republican Steve Hilton (24%) and Democrat Xavier Becerra (19%) in a crowded field. 

You can click here to download the pdf and peruse the rest of the first report.