In the closely watched race for the District 2 OC Supervisor seat, Garden Grove Councilwoman Kim Bernice Nguyen was holding a slim lead after results were updated Wednesday evening, and the District 5 candidates were separated by a few thousand votes.

Santa Ana Mayor Vicente Sarmiento had been the frontrunner when the earliest returns were released on election night, but Nguyen ended up ahead after several more results dumps. The district was redrawn last year following the 2020 census and is the county’s first-ever Latino majority district; voting rights advocates had pushed for its creation, noting that Latinos make up about a third of Orange County residents.

Based on Wednesday’s update, District 4 Supervisor Doug Chaffee looked in solid position to win reelection over opponent Sunny Park, the current mayor of Buena Park.

The race for District 5, which pitted current District 2 Supervisor Katrina Foley (the redrawn district lines now put her in District 5) against state Sen. Pat Bates, remained close – but Foley was leading by a margin of several thousand votes, a much wider gap than in District 2.

It’s unknown exactly how many of the still uncounted ballots could affect those close races. The OC Registrar of Voters continues to process more than 404,000 ballots countywide, many of which were mailed-in ballots, from drop boxes or were turned in at vote centers.

Vote totals will be updated again at 5 p.m. Thursday.

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