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A Northern California county Board of Supervisors candidate who died in August is on track to win his election, a result that would hand the incoming governor the job of picking someone for the seat.
Bruce Giudici, a candidate for the District 5 seat in Calaveras County, had 2,002 votes, or 57.1 percent, in the county's latest unofficial count, released Tuesday afternoon. Former Supervisor Clyde Clapp had 1,505, or 42.9 percent, which put Giudici 497 votes ahead.
The county's elections office lists 168 ballots still unprocessed countywide and 340 more that voters can still "cure" because the signatures were missing or didn't match the ones on file. It's unclear how many come from District 5, one of five supervisor districts in the county. Like the rest of California, the county counts slowly, and its next update is due at 5 p.m. local time Friday. Results must be certified by December 3.
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"There are a few hundred ballots left to process, but it is unlikely that the outcome of the race will change," Carrie Biggs-Adams, a volunteer with Giudici's campaign, told KCRA in Sacramento.
Newsweek reached out to the Giudici campaign for comment on Friday.
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Fall on the Campaign Trail
Giudici, 68, was knocking on doors in Valley Springs on August 30 when he fell on a steep driveway and a homeowner called 911. Giudici suffered a serious head injury and died the next day at San Joaquin General Hospital.
By then it was too late to take his name off the ballot. Under California law, a candidate who dies after the 68th day before an election stays on the ballot, and the votes cast for that person are counted. Texas has a similar rule, which this year kept a Brazoria County justice of the peace who died in September on the ballot.
"Bruce may be gone, but his mission continues," the campaign wrote on social media the day he died.
"It was a very complicated decision to decide to keep going and an emotional one, and we felt very strongly that Bruce had wanted to do this," Biggs-Adams said.
Giudici worked as a fiscal officer for the Amador Tuolumne Community Action Agency, a nonprofit, and ran on government spending, wildfire preparedness, public safety and the state of the county's roads. He earned bachelor's and graduate degrees from UC Davis. He is survived by his wife, Debbie, and two daughters, according to his obituary.
Roberta Corso, his campaign treasurer and a friend, told The New York Times that Giudici was "wicked smart with numbers."
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Ten-Year Rivalry
After his death, the campaign made the race about Clapp.
"Bruce was determined to defeat Clyde Clapp and prevent him from returning for a second term," the campaign said in a September 2 statement.
Clapp won the District 5 seat in a 2016 recall election in which Giudici finished third. In 2018, Giudici was third again in the primary, and Benjamin Stopper unseated Clapp after half a term. Clapp, now 77, ran for the Calaveras County Water District board two years after that.
In this year's June primary, Giudici came in first with 36.9 percent of the vote, just ahead of Clapp's 35.6 percent. Stopper, the incumbent, finished third and missed the November runoff.
The Calaveras Enterprise has reported on a state complaint alleging that Clapp improperly voted on a marijuana ban despite financial conflicts, and on a county judge's finding that he committed elder abuse in connection with a real estate lawsuit.
"I'm still going to vote for him because he's going to be on the ballot," Stopper told The Union Democrat in September. "He's the best guy for the job, even in this situation, unfortunately."
After the first results came in, Stopper told the paper that Giudici's lead showed "voters actually heard the facts." Of Clapp, he said: "History shows he is selfish, and he was never there for the people."
Clapp called Giudici's death "a tragedy" in September and said the two had different political views but got along socially. Newsweek reached out to Clapp for comment.
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What Happens If a Dead Man Wins
If Giudici keeps his majority through certification, state law treats him as elected. Because he can't take office, the seat becomes vacant when the new term starts in January.
California's governor fills vacancies on county boards of supervisors. That will be Governor-elect Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, who won the governor's race on November 3 and is set to be sworn in on January 4, 2027.
The county's elections office plays no part in choosing the appointee. The person Becerra picks would serve until a successor is elected, likely beginning with the March 2028 primary, or about 15 months.
The campaign has no favorite for the job. Stopper has said he is not interested in applying.
A Democratic governor would then fill a seat in a county that leans heavily Republican. Supervisor races are formally nonpartisan, but Calaveras has backed Republican presidential candidates for decades, and Republican Steve Hilton won 63.7 percent of the county's vote in this month's governor's race. He carried only a handful of California counties.
Biggs-Adams thanked voters who "trusted us that a good person would come forward and be a better alternative as their district five supervisor."
"We appreciate their support and their trust," she said, "and now will help make sure somebody good is selected."
Not the First Time
In 2010, Calaveras District Attorney Jeff Tuttle died before Election Day. His name stayed on the ballot and he won the uncontested June race, and the Board of Supervisors gave the job to his assistant, Barbara Yook. She has won reelection three times since.
In 2000, Missouri elected Governor Mel Carnahan to the U.S. Senate weeks after he died in a plane crash. Acting Governor Roger Wilson appointed Carnahan's widow, Jean, to the seat. In 2022, several candidates who had died won their races, among them Pennsylvania state Representative Tony DeLuca, who died of lymphoma the month before.
In 1972, House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Representative Nick Begich of Alaska were reelected after the small plane carrying them disappeared over Alaska a few weeks before the election.
This month in Iowa, Democrat Eric Armstrong won a statehouse seat by 865 votes two months after ending his campaign for health reasons.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Samantha Beech and Dave Siminoff.
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