Wilson, Motts, Rocha lead in races for Antioch council, school board
But “thousands of ballots” in the county, as many as “40 to 50 percent of all ballots” remain to be counted
By Allen D. Payton
As of 12:12 AM Wednesday morning, the results from Election Night, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, show two incumbents and one challenger leading in their respective races for the Antioch City Council and School Board. In the District 4 Antioch City Council race, incumbent Monica Wilson appears to be headed for reelection as she has a wide lead over her three opponents, and in the Trustee Area 5 race for the Antioch School Board, incumbent Mary Rocha is leading challenger and newcomer, Brandon Dawkins. In the other city council race in District 1, former Councilwoman Joy Motts is leading incumbent Tamisha Torres-Walker in their third match-up in as many elections. All three started in the lead since the initial returns were posted Tuesday night.
The information is based on the “Unofficial Results – Election Night Final” by the Contra Costa Elections office, with “100% of Precincts Reporting”. However, the numbers only include ballots cast at early polling places beginning last Friday, on Election Day, or received in the mail or picked up from the 43 drop boxes throughout the county by Monday.
According to Elections office staff on Wednesday, there are still “thousands and thousands of ballots” remaining to be counted. That’s because those were placed in the 43 drop boxes, including two in Antioch on Tuesday. The staff member said they were surprised at how many ballots were dropped off yesterday and they had to conduct at least two rounds of pick-ups. Elections office staff picked up ballots from the drop boxes which were full yesterday morning, then went out and picked up more throughout the day as they filled up again.
“We were out all day. They came to the office and emptied them and went back out to pick up more,” said Elections office spokesperson Dawn Kruger. Those don’t include the ballots mailed and postmarked by 5:00 p.m. yesterday which can still arrive by next Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. “About 40 to 50 percent of the total ballots usually come on and just after Election Day,” she stated.
District 4 Council Race
The Election Night results show Wilson has 2,429 votes or 44.07 percent of the vote and third-time challenger Sandra White in a distant second with 1,594 votes or 28.92 percent. In third place is newcomer Matty Matthews Alappat with 904 votes, or 16.5 percent of the vote, serving as a spoiler to White, and local homeless and affordable housing advocate, Andrew Becker, also running for office for the first time, in fourth place with just 585 votes or 10.61 percent. In response to the initial results, White said, “I’m not running for local office, again.”
School Board Trustee Area 5 Race
In the Antioch School Board Trustee Area 5 race the latest results show Rocha has increased her lead by the number of votes but decreased in percentage over Dawkins. She now has 1,795 votes or 58.79 percent to his 1,258 votes or 41.21 percent of the vote. When reached for comment Tuesday night about possibly being reelected Rocha said simply, “It’s too early to tell.”
District 1 Council Race
Finally, in the District 1 Council race, the latest results show Motts maintaining her lead over Torres-Walker, but it had narrowed with each of the two updates. The challenger and former councilwoman now has 1,795 votes – matching Rocha’s current vote count – or 54.16 percent of the vote and Torres-Walker has 1,519 votes or 45.84 percent of the vote. So, the challenger has a current lead of 276 votes over the incumbent.
This is the third time they’ve faced each other, with Torres-Walker unseating Motts in 2020 by 212 votes, then barely beating her in 2022 by just four votes. But both of those races included a third candidate, former Councilman Manny Soliz in 2020 and former School Board Trustee Diane Gibson-Gray in 2022, splitting the vote and allowing Torres-Walker to be elected and reelected with just 36.2 and 34.4 percent of the vote, respectively.
Although she “fully intended to run again” Gibson-Gray later announced in August she would not run, which allowed a head-to-head race between just the current and former councilwomen.
To project what could happen with the remaining ballots based on the turnout four years ago when there were 4,622 votes cast in the District 1 race, plus, a 4.4 percent increase in voter registration countywide since then, that would assume 4,825 total votes were cast in this year’s race. Out of the 1,511 additional assumed votes, Torres-Walker would have to receive 59.2% percent of the remaining votes or 894 votes to 617 for Motts to catch up and take the lead by one vote. However, the incumbent only picked up 54.8 percent of the 429 additional votes in the second update, and 57.2 percent of the 152 votes in the third and final, smaller update last night. But it is still a possibility.
In response to the results and the narrowing vote gap, Motts said Tuesday night, “We’ve been here, before. So, it’s still too soon to know.”
Voter Registration, Next Update & Certification Date
According to Kruger, there are 67,753 registered voters in the city of Antioch and 70,079 in the Antioch Unified School District which has different boundaries than the city.
They don’t know yet how many ballots remain to be counted, but expect to have an update by Thursday afternoon, she shared. “We prepared everything last night so we could put the ballots through the sorter, start checking signatures and we can get through as much of it be Friday,” Kruger added. “That’s our plan.”
According to the schedule on the Elections office website, the Target Certification / Final Results are projected for Dec. 3rd.
the attachments to this post:
ACC D1 race 1212AM 110426 wide
AUSD A5 Rocha vs Dawkins 1212AM 110426 wide
ACC D4 race 1212AM 110426 wide
