LIVEBLOG | It’s Election Day. Don’t forget to vote and after you do, visit EBCitizen.com for all the primary day news and analysis. The EBC LiveBlog starts at 4 p.m. and election returns begin shortly after 8 p.m.

PROBLEMS IN AD-16
12:00am | Around 11 p.m. there was a sudden shift in the AD16 totals. Steve Glazer suddenly overtook Tim Sbranti for second in what appeared to be an odd and sharp reversal. However, the Alameda County registrar’s page showed a totally different result than the combined tally with Contra Costa County. The returns are now on hold. Nevertheless, Catharine Baker is the likely winner, who she will face in November is still too close to call.

BUSSELL OVERTAKES CORBETT
11:20pm | Livermore Republican Hugh Bussell is now in second place. He now lead Ellen Corbett with a slim 0.7 percent second place lead. Inside the numbers, Corbett is getting clobbered in the smaller Contra Costa County portion of CA-15. She has just 19 percent of the vote in CoCo, while Swalwell has 46.8 percent and Bussell with 34.2 percent. In Alameda County, Corbett holds a less than two point edge over Bussell, a first time candidate, 26.2 percent to 24.3.

CORBETT 2ND PLACE LEADS IS SHRINKING
10:35pm | This second place result in CA-15 was not on many people’s radar, but Ellen Corbett leads Republican Hugh Bussell by just 44 votes with 44 percent of precincts reporting. Corbett holds 25.5 percent to Bussell’s 25.4 percent and the lead has slowly been shrinking. Meanwhile, Swalwell has held steady at 49.1 percent throughout the night. Holding the incumbent under 50 percent is an accomplishment, but with both challengers splitting the vote, it doesn’t bode well for Corbett tonight or in November.

ROUTS ARE ON IN SOME EAST BAY RACES
10:00pm | There is still some uncertainty tonight, but some candidates are sitting pretty right now. Assemblymember Rob Bonta looks like the primary’s biggest winner by percentage. Bonta currently holds 84 percent of the AD-18 vote. Rep. Barbara Lee in CA-13, typically a top election performer, has 80 percent and Assemblymember Bill Quirk in AD-20 is topping 66 percent.

KHANNA WANTS FALL DEBATES
9:50pm | Despite being 25 points behind Mike Honda with about 12 percent of the ballots counted in CA-17, but almost assured a spot in the November General Election, Ro Khanna called for five debates between them this fall. The declaration, similar to what he urged for after a forum in early May, was mentioned in a tweet from the campaign in the last few minutes.

HAYASHI TRAILING IN THIRD PLACE
9:20pm | Just like two years ago, Mary Hayashi’s finishing game is betraying here. She sits in third place behind Peter Kuo, while Bob Wieckowski holds a six point lead.

SHOCKER IN CA-15
9:20pm | Ellen Corbett sits in second place to Eric Swalwell, who nearly holds a majority at 49.1 percent. However, Hugh Bussell is just a half percent behind the state senate majority leader. Stay tuned for this one.

MONROE WITH STRONG LEAD IN ALCO SCHOOLS RACE
8:50pm | Karen Monroe appears to have a strong hold on first place in the ALCO superintendent’s race, although with only 36.7% of the vote, a runoff seems assured. Surprisingly, San Lorenzo school trustee Helen Foster is holding a seven point lead over Pleasanton trustee Jeff Bowser.

HAYWARD EARLY RESULTS
8:45pm | Hayward, Councilmember Barbara Halliday is in a strong position to become the city’s next mayor. She has a wide lead over Mark Salinas.

Sara Lamnin may finally be heading to a seat on the City Council. Councilmember Marvin Peixoto appears set to win re-election. Union will get at least one seat on the council with Lamnin, but not Rocky Fernandez. A surprise.

8:30pm | The State Secretary of State page is not yet showing Alameda County results, which makes multi-county races such as SD10, AD16 and CA17 hard to decipher.

INITIAL RETURNS RARELY DEVIATE FROM FINAL RESULT
7:55pm | This is my third election season and you start noticing some trends. I’ve found the initial election returns rarely change throughout the night. Those first batches of returns, of course, are Vote-By-Mail ballots and they seem to reveal a tidy snapshot for the rest of the night. However, there was one notable exception. In the 2010 San Leandro mayoral race, Tony Santos initially led before losing out to Stephen Cassidy. Nevertheless, the first returns coming within the next 30 minutes will likely be the ultimate outcomes.

POTENTIAL ANGLES AS POLLS CLOSE IN 30 MINUTES
7:30pm |
1. AD16: Steve Glazer or Tim Sbranti in the top two? Will Catharine Baker take the top spot?
2. SD10: Will Mary Hayashi live another day?
3. CA17: How small is the point spread between Rep. Mike Honda and Ro Khanna?
4. CA15: How large is the point spread between Rep. Eric Swalwell and State Sen. Ellen Corbett?
5. HAYMAYOR: Who will lead the Heart of the Bay?
6. HAYCOUNCIL: Will labor’s pair of council candidates sweep the two open seats?
7. CAGOV: Tim Donnelly or Neel Kashkari versus Gov. Jerry Brown in November?

SWALWELL IN CASTRO VALLEY
7:00pm | Rep. Eric Swalwell has such good luck. His campaign posted a one-minute long video of the congressman at the Castro Valley BART station this morning as he handed out cups of coffee. While he was at it, Swalwell managed to find the one constituent who just happened to know about the candidate’s two most important voter blocs–veterans and women. It’s simply too good to be true. It’s kind of like meeting an attractive woman who is not only funny, but really like football, too! Furthermore, according to the video, those who placed bets on Swalwell, indeed, having freshly-plucked eyebrows today are winners.

CRESSMAN FOLLOWS BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER ACTRESS
6:45pm | Is Derek Cressman’s secretary of state campaign searching for an extra edge tonight? His campaign made an interesting follow on Twitter a few minutes ago with Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Eliza Dushku. Cressman is now among her 1.5 million followers. But wait. Dushku is also an advocate for overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling. Around 6 p.m., she asked followers to sign a petition for a constitutional amendment to reverse the decision.

GOVERNOR’S RACE FOR SECOND PLACE

Tim Donnelly

6:30pm | I will attest to being someone looking for a good matchup. That’s why I’m going for Tim Donnelly tonight over fellow Republican Neel Kashkari. Donnelly is a trash talker, for sure. Ask Assemblymember Rob Bonta about Donnelly’s verbal attacks on the Assembly floor. Donnelly is against gun control and Bonta and others from the Bay Area delegation offered a menu of gun violence bills last year, so there was cause for conflict. But, Donnelly isn’t a bad guy, nor is he crazy, or, anymore crazy than some progressives on the other side of the political spectrum. I briefly spoke to Donnelly at year’s State GOP Convention in Burlingame and found him engaging, honest and totally open to opining on any subject. Conversely, Kashkari was the opposite. In one press scrum, Kashkari was pinned against a wall by a circle of reporters. They hounded him about his support for TARP and he struggled to answer. In the meantime, an enormous amount of sweat began to form in beads all over his shaved head. If just one bead crashed into another an avalanche of water would have cascaded down his face, but it never happened. I don’t know what Kashkari was talking about since I was preoccupied by the potential waterfall on his pate.

Neel Kashkari









SUPERINTENDENT RACE HEADED TO RUNOFF?
5:25pm | Last week, I didn’t post any prognostications for the open Alameda County Superintendent of Schools race, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t asking around in search of some consensus. Since it’s a countywide race, the basic assumption says Oakland is the key to victory. Most believe the heir apparent of outgoing Superintendent Sheila Jordan, Karen Monroe, is the likely top vote-getter. However, she isn’t likely to win a simple majority of the vote with four other capable candidates on the ballot. Therefore, this race is probably headed for a November runoff. Keeping in mind the path to the Board of Education goes through Oakland, many think San Leandro Councilmember Ursula Reed could sneak into second. I would tend to agree, although any of the remaining four could advance, but voters might be inclined to find a sense of gravitas in a candidate who already holds elected office.

MONEY TALKS
5:00pm | A potential sign opponents of Mary Hayashi think her bid for the top two is increasingly unlikely is money from the independent expenditure committee advocating for her demise stopped spending nearly about 10 days ago. Californians for Integrity in Government Opposed to Mary Hayashi, sponsored by Peace Officer, Nurses, Consumer Attorneys and Labor Organizations, the IE that spent over $222,000 to hinder her efforts, last made an expenditure on May 25, according to finance records, and it was for only $5,000. Before that, the last splurge of money spent was May 22. Money is still talking in the equally contentious 16th Assembly District race with Steve Glazer and Tim Sbranti because it’s still a toss-up. Not so much in the titillating 10th Senate District. We’ll see how the bets in each race pan out.

WRITE-IN CANDIDATES
4:45pm | You can certainly write your own name on the ballot, or even your friend or your dog, but there are only three qualified write-in names for Alameda County, according to the registrar. All of them are for the California governor. They include Democrat Karen Bernal and non-partisan candidate Jimelle Walls. There is also a candidate named Nickolas Wildstar, another without party affiliation.

BONTA VOTES IN ALAMEDA










4:30pm | Assemblymember Rob Bonta cast his ballot this morning in Alameda–presumably for himself. Bonta’s wife followed and the two chatted in the parking lot. Bonta joked whether he was the requisite number of feet away from the polling place while chatting to his wife or risk violating rules against electioneering. Later, an Alamedan said he voted for Bonta in the 18th Assembly District primary, but wondered why Bonta left the City Council after only filling half his term. If you don’t know, Alamedans don’t let things go. If Bonta one day represents the city in Congress, many of the island will still hold his ambition against him.