Tight District 1 contest; Tregub, Humbert ahead other races
Two of Berkeley's ballot measures remain too close to call.
Laura Babitt held a narrow lead over Daria Wrubel in Berkeley's District 1 City Council race Tuesday night, while incumbents Igor Tregub and Mark Humbert were ahead in their bids for re-election.
Syrak Micael was out in front of Aidan Hill in the contest for the open District 7 seat.
Meanwhile, six of Berkeley's seven local ballot measures had majority support in the early returns, but two remain too close to call.
Additional ballots will be counted in the days ahead. The next Alameda County election results are set to come Friday.
Emilie Raguso
District 1: Babitt leads Wrubel in close race
In District 1, Laura Babitt had 52% of the vote after ranked-choice calculations Tuesday night, compared with 48% for Daria Wrubel.
The crowded race for the northwest Berkeley seat drew five candidates, including Ross Bernet, Moni Gangopadhyay and Steve Kromer.
Bernet remains in contention, with about 130 votes separating the top three candidates in the initial returns.
Wrubel said her campaign was optimistic about the results and would await the next updates.
"With hundreds (potentially thousands) of votes still to count, and less than 150 separating 1st from 3rd place, we are feeling good, and will patiently await final results," she said. "This race is still wide open."
Emilie Raguso
About 3,800 ballots had been counted by the end of election night. In 2022, 6,625 votes were cast in the District 1 council race.
Wrubel and her supporters gathered at Café Leila for an election night party featuring a live Balkan brass band.
Babitt, meanwhile, thanked her supporters and emphasized the need to count all remaining ballots.
"This campaign was about listening to our neighbors so we can turn our shared priorities into results," she said in a prepared statement. "Whatever the final result, I am proud that we ran a campaign focused on the issues affecting people’s everyday lives and on what we can accomplish together."
The winner will succeed Councilwoman Rashi Kesarwani, who did not seek re-election.
Berkeley City Council District 1: First-choice results
District 8: Humbert holds narrow majority
Incumbent Mark Humbert had approximately 52% of the vote in District 8 as of the final election night update.
Challenger Michael Wallman was in second place with about 33%, followed by Mari Mendonca and Fred Feller, who withdrew from the race.
If Humbert maintains a majority, he can win without a ranked-choice runoff.
"Too early to make a statement other than I'm cautiously optimistic!" he said Tuesday night.
Humbert won the District 8 seat in 2022 with 64% of the vote but has seen support wane this year in response to proposed zoning changes on College Avenue.
District 4: Tregub outpaces Gaith
In downtown Berkeley's District 4, incumbent Igor Tregub led challenger Majdi Gaith with 59% of the vote to Gaith's 41% as of the final election night update.
In 2018, 6,037 ballots were cast in the contested District 4 council race, but the district boundaries have since changed. An uncontested race in 2022 drew 3,049 votes.
Tregub won the seat in a May 2024 special election after a close ranked-choice contest with 2,335 ballots cast.
District 7: Micael holds commanding lead over Hill
Syrak Micael had approximately 68% of the vote Tuesday night in District 7, compared with 32% for Aidan Hill.
Hill's campaign cautioned against drawing conclusions from the early results, noting that many ballots remained outstanding.
Campaign manager Josh Lavine said late-arriving mail-in ballots, provisional ballots and same-day registrations could be particularly significant in Southside Berkeley.
"Every ballot should be counted, and that takes days in Alameda County," he said. "The campaign will have more to say when the count settles."
"Whatever the numbers show, Aidan will keep showing up for Southside," Lavine added.
Hill's campaign volunteers gathered at SoCo, a coworking space on Dwight Way, to watch the returns.
District 7, which was redrawn to concentrate Berkeley's student population, has historically seen extremely low turnout in City Council elections.
In 2022, just 691 votes were cast in the uncontested District 7 council race, with 490 ballots cast on Election Day.
A special election for the Southside seat in April 2024 saw just 488 votes cast, with Cecilia Lunaparra taking 60% of the vote. Lunaparra did not seek re-election.
2 Berkeley ballot measures still too close to call
Six of Berkeley's seven ballot measures had majority support Tuesday night, although the margins varied considerably.
Measure U, a $300 million infrastructure bond, had about 70% support, above the two-thirds threshold required for approval.
Measure V, which would increase Berkeley's sales tax by half a percentage point, was much closer, with about 52% voting yes and 48% voting no.
Measure Z, which would establish a public bank funded by a parcel tax, was trailing, with approximately 42% voting yes and 58% voting no.
In 2022, about 44,000 votes were cast on each Berkeley ballot measure, with about 47,000 ballots cast in the city overall.
Berkeley school board results
In the Berkeley school board election, incumbents Ka'dijah Brown and Jennifer Shanoski and challenger Sandy Park won the three available seats, which also drew a write-in campaign from Reichi Lee.
More election results coming Friday
Alameda County election officials are scheduled to release their next vote count Friday, Nov. 6, followed by additional updates Nov. 9, 13 and 16.
The results remain unofficial until certification.
Follow the latest Berkeley election results as new votes are counted.
