Several hotly debated contests decided by voters Tuesday

The 2018 California primaries have mostly been decided with a number of ballots already counted. The next push of election results is on Friday.

Voters say this primary campaign season has been ugly and recognize it is just a taste of what’s to come this November. However, for some local races, we won’t have to wait for an answer, they were overwhelmingly decided on Tuesday night.

“I think it was really rough, it was really nasty,” said voter Tom Bender.

That’s how Tom Bender described the primary campaign season. He said one race in particular bothered him. The Monterey County Sheriff race between incumbent Steve Bernal and Deputy Scott Davis. Current numbers show Bernal has 64-percent of the vote, compared to Davis’ 35-percent.

“I just wanted to hear about solutions about budget cuts that are coming up for the county and it was about personal attacks,” Bender said.

Davis said the Sheriff’s Office was “plagued with corruption,” while ousted members of the Deputy Sheriff’s Association accused him of taking thousands of dollars from the union. Davis also played to the face he was a Democrat, while Bernal was a Republican. Bernal said it’s important to keep party lines out of nonpartisan positions.

“When somebody runs as a Democrat, a Republican or any kind of party for nonpartisan seat that’s got to throw up red flags” Bernal said. “It has no place in a nonpartisan position, so, I look forward to doing my job as sheriff for the people and not for one political party.”

He credited Democrats with helping him with re-election, saying he couldn’t win on the Republican vote alone.

In the meantime, Davis told KION that he still plans to continue his work as a Salinas City Council Member.

“I really love the community that I represent and being out there is really a privilege and an hour so we’re going to continue to do great things in our community,” Davis said.

Another race that was divided along party lines was for the Monterey County District 2 Supervisor, which covers North County.

Incumbent John Phillips won 58-percent of the vote over Democrat Regina Gage’s 48-percent. She ran an ad comparing Phillips to President Donald Trump, another said he was anti-women.

He believes it backfired against his opponent and that voters saw that.

“Doesn’t make any difference what political party we belong to, we got to work together to bring about the right kind of changes for our community, our county,” Phillips said.

Ahead of the general election in November, voter Tom Bender wants candidates to remember one thing:

“Focus on the issues and let’s not focus on attacks, let’s not focus on partisan politics, but really what are some of the solutions they’ll bring,” Bender said.