Abigail Strickland spent last weekend cooking egg bites, chia seed pudding, and chicken coconut curry soup, an excellent distraction from leftover Election Day anxieties and latent feelings of foreboding. A planner for the California Coastal Commission, she’s currently in second place in the race for two open seats on the Arcata City Council. (The incumbent, Mayor Kimberley White, currently has what might be an insurmountable 500-vote lead for the other one.) 

Strickland’s not ahead of the competition by much. The elections office reported Friday that it’s counted 926 votes for Strickland and 915 for her closest rival, Genevieve Serna. And any concept of an unfinished race is an illusion — it’s simply up to the county government to get the remaining 24,000-odd votes counted. But, as anyone who’s seen an intruder in their bedroom late at night in the negative of a jacket’s shadow can attest, illusions are powerful.

“I’ve definitely been on the edge of my seat,” Strickland told the Outpost. Friends and acquaintances have reached out to congratulate her, unaware that the election’s not over. On Election Night, she stayed up ‘til around midnight to catch the third election night report, putting off filing her work with the Arcata Planning Commission until close to its 11:59 p.m. deadline. She was nervous; she asked her boyfriend to open the first batch of results for her.

Strickland’s lead at the end of that night was 11 votes, up from nine a couple hours before. She knew there’d be a fourth report that night; she slept with her phone under her pillow.

“I was waking up at random hours,” she said, “Like, ‘OK, is it there yet?’ And then it wasn’t. Even my boyfriend was, like, ‘Every time I woke up in the night, I saw you on your phone,’ and I was, like, ‘I was refreshing and waiting to see.’ So it was a bad night of sleep.” 

She was “discombobulated” the next day, and eager for more intel. She couldn’t stop herself from refreshing the results. The elections office dropped its most recent tally last Thursday; she knew there wouldn’t be another until Wednesday, November 11. “Then, I was able to be, like, ‘OK, there’s nothing to look at,’” she said. “Although I kept hoping that there would be an article about how they’re posting them early because they counted them faster, but that hasn’t happened.” 

Whatever they say, Strickland doubts it’ll be a landslide either way. Every candidate is a strong one, she said, and there’s always room for someone else to snag the seat.

Serna seemed a little more sanguine during a phone interview. She’s been too busy to be worried, she told the Outpost, and she works in the elections office, so she’s familiar with the length of the process, the rhythm of the reports’ releases. She’s excited to see how it pans out (“I guess it’ll help me plan out my next year,” she said, “my next couple years, I guess”), but her work’s intensity prevented her from “spinning out” too much.

Serna wasn’t surprised to learn she was doing well when the first results started coming out. She was at the Humboldt Democrat’s Election Night party, enjoying watching the other contests play out. Serna ran in 2024 as well; she lost by 300 votes. Serna’s proud of that campaign, and she’ll be proud of this one too even if she loses. Canvassing was fun, and she liked talking with residents about their concerns, what they want changed, what they want to stay the same. (Data centers and housing came up a lot.) 

“If I win the seat, I’d be happy to serve the city of Arcata,” she said. “And then, if I don’t end up winning the seat — you know, I’m a busy lady. I can find some other things to throw my heart into.”

Of course, she’d prefer to win. The results coming out on Wednesday will probably accurately predict the winner, Serna thinks. Strickland agreed. 

“I think about all of the other candidates who are running in a race in this election, and I’m, like, ‘They are feeling exactly how I am feeling right now,’” Strickland said. “Like, can Wednesday just get here already?”