Wilson appears to have won AD-15 Republican race

By fewer than 300 votes, San Ramon Mayor H. Abram Wilson appears to have clinched the Republican nomination for California Assembly District 15.

Returns from all four counties in that district on the California Secretary of State's Web site show Wilson with 11,828 votes and 30.1 percent of the vote, to 11,586 and 29.5 percent for Robert Rao, a small businessman from Livermore.

Two other Republican candidates, Judy Lloyd and Scott Kamena, finished with 23.3 percent and 17.1 percent respectively in the June 3 primary.

In Alameda, Sacramento and San Joaquin counties, elections officials said their vote totals were final. However, an official with Contra Costa County's elections office said there are about 2,500 provisional and absentee ballots still to be counted.

It was unclear how many of those ballots were from the portion of the county in the 15th district, or how many were cast by Republican voters, the only party registration allowed to vote in a Republican primary.

However, if those ballots conform to previous results, Wilson will most likely win, as he received more votes in Contra Costa County than in any other county. His margin of victory in that county over Rao is about 2,000 votes.

The 15th Assembly District stretches through largely suburban and rural areas on the edges of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the East Bay Area.

If victorious, Wilson will face school board member Joan Buchanan in November. Buchanan, of Alamo, easily defeated Ted Ford on June 3, with 60.3 percent of the vote.

Though the district was drawn in 2001 to favor Republicans, party registration has tilted narrowly Democratic in recent years, with that party holding a 39.4 percent to 38.1 percent advantage over registered Republicans as of the last report in May.

The narrow lead means that the district is expected to have a competitive race to replace termed-out Assemblyman Guy Houston (R-San Ramon).