Santa Rosa Council member Dianna MacDonald scored a resounding victory in the city’s District 3 race, far outpacing her rival and first-time candidate Janice Karrman.

MacDonald said Friday she was honored by the opportunity to continue serving the district, which stretches from the city’s eastern hills to Oakmont, and thanked voters and community members for their support.

“As someone who grew up in Santa Rosa, I take this role very seriously and look forward to making the best decisions on behalf of my district and the entire city of Santa Rosa,” he said. “My number one goal is to make sure Santa Rosa continues to be a place where our community thrives.”

With 63% of the total potential votes counted, MacDonald maintained his lead with 82.2% of the vote to Karrman’s 17.8%, according to the latest results released Friday.

On Friday, Karrman did not budge and declined to comment further when contacted by a reporter.

It is highly unlikely that he will be able to close the wide gap, even if he were to win a much larger share of the vote in later updates, given the number of outstanding ballots and the expected turnout across the county.

Santa Rosa’s other competitive race in District 5 was still too close to call and there were still potentially thousands of votes left to count in the race.

Caroline Bañuelos led with 59.6% and Jeremy Newton had around 40.4% with around 44% of the total potential votes counted so far.

Voters also returned incumbents Eddie Alvarez and Natalie Rogers, who were unopposed in their respective runs for second terms in Districts 1 and 7, to the council dais.

District 3

MacDonald, 51, was first appointed in February 2022 to fill Jack Tibbetts’ seat and ran unopposed for the remaining two years of her term in November.

He is a fourth-generation Sonoma County resident and grew up in Santa Rosa. A retired small business owner, she served as a school board trustee in Cloverdale before returning to Santa Rosa and was president of the California State PTA.

He said he is running for reelection to a four-year term to finish the job he set out to do when he first took office.

MacDonald said she was eager to get to work addressing issues ranging from affordability and housing to infrastructure and public safety needs in her district, where fire safety remains a key concern after the 2017 and 2020 fires. .

Karrman, 76, a retired wine broker who lives in Rincon Valley, said she entered the race to give voters an option on the ballot and touted her prior business experience as an advantage if elected.

He ran a limited campaign for office and struggled to get involved in city issues.

District 5

Bañuelos has widened his lead since initial results were released after polls closed on election night. About 870 votes separated the candidates Friday afternoon.

Bañuelos, 65, a Santa Rosa Junior College board member and longtime community leader, said he was cautiously optimistic about the results but was waiting for more votes to be counted.

Still, he said he felt his campaign resonated with voters.

“I am very proud of the campaign we carried out. We had a wonderful team. “Everyone was really committed to what we were trying to do, which was reach as many voters as possible,” he said. “No matter what happens, I’m very, very grateful and I appreciate everyone’s effort because this is not something I can do on my own by any means.”

The race in the city’s central district garnered the most political support and a flurry of spending in the final weeks of the campaign as Bañuelos and Newton tried to reach voters.

Newton, a 45-year-old military veteran and commercial airline pilot, said that while he had a big gap to overcome, he was optimistic he could gain ground.

He cited his campaign’s push to reach late voters in person, by phone and by mail.

“We made a great effort from the middle of the month until election day. “I think that will have an impact and we’ll see that with the next drop as we start to capture some of those later voters,” he said.

You can contact staff writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or [email protected]. In X (Twitter) @paulinapineda22.