As of 6 p.m. Monday, incumbent Poway Unified School District trustees Heather Plotzke and Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff were both holding comfortable leads in their reelection bids, while newcomer Kym Sosnowski was ahead of challenger Brett Davis in the open Trustee Area B race by nearly 11 percentage points. None of the results are final, and county officials caution that tens of thousands of ballots remain to be counted across San Diego County.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Plotzke had 60.52% of the vote in Trustee Area C, good for 8,008 votes, compared with 39.48% and 5,223 votes for challenger Jason Bennett — a lead of around 21 percentage points. Area C covers most of Rancho Bernardo along with parts of 4S Ranch, Rancho Peñasquitos and Carmel Mountain Ranch, and Plotzke, who resides in Rancho Bernardo, is completing her first four-year term on the board.
In Trustee Area D, O’Connor-Ratcliff led a three-way field with 54.35% of the vote, or 7,108 votes. Daniela Darling placed second with 34.39% (4,497 votes), and Jennifer Dahlquist Ramirez placed third with 11.26% (1,472 votes). The report notes O’Connor-Ratcliff, who lives in Rancho Peñasquitos, led Darling by around 18 percentage points when polls closed and is positioned to begin her fourth four-year term representing an area that includes parts of Rancho Peñasquitos, Carmel Mountain Ranch and Sabre Springs.
Area B Race Narrows as Newcomers Vie for Open Seat
The closest of the three contests is unfolding in Trustee Area B, which covers north Poway and northeast Rancho Bernardo. The seat is open because incumbent Ginger Couvrette decided not to seek a third term, leaving two newcomers, Sosnowski and Davis, to compete for it.
As of the Monday evening count, Sosnowski — a Poway resident — had 55.32% of the vote, or 9,837 votes, while Davis, who lives in Rancho Bernardo, had 44.68%, or 7,944 votes. The margin has shifted since polls closed on Nov. 3, when the county Registrar of Voters released the first batch of results just minutes afterward and Sosnowski held only about an 8% lead over Davis — a gap the newspaper's report cautioned could easily flip once more ballots were counted. By Monday evening, that lead had grown to nearly 11 points, but with a substantial number of ballots still outstanding, the race remained the only one of the three not fully settled in the candidates' own characterizations.
Hundreds of Thousands of Ballots Still Awaiting Count
The newspaper's report put the number of projected outstanding ballots countywide at 185,000 as of Monday evening. A separate tally cited by Village News, drawn from a Registrar of Voters estimate dated Nov. 6 and checked two days later, put the countywide figure at roughly 390,000 ballots still awaiting processing, with officials there describing results as unofficial and counting as ongoing. The two figures come from different points in the count and from different outlets, but both underscore that none of the Poway Unified races can be called final yet.
That caution is echoed directly by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, which says all results remain unofficial until the canvass is completed and certified, a process expected to wrap up on or before Dec. 3. The registrar's office also notes that voters have until Nov. 25 to resolve a missing or non-matching signature on a mail ballot envelope, and that any mail ballot postmarked by Election Day will still count as timely if it reaches the registrar by Nov. 10.
Candidates React to Early Returns
Plotzke said she was grateful to her supporters and to voters who trusted her, while Bennett said he respected voters' decision and appreciated those who had supported his campaign, according to the same Union-Tribune report. He had highlighted his history with the district during the campaign, saying he had been serving Poway Unified since 2012 and had donated more than $100,000 to district-related sports programs, foundations and PTAs since opening his businesses.
O’Connor-Ratcliff said she was pleased that voters had trusted her to continue the board's work. Darling and Dahlquist Ramirez did not comment on the race, per the report. In Area B, Sosnowski said she hoped to extend her lead as remaining votes were counted and to begin her term with the confidence of voters, while Davis said the closeness of the contest showed how much the community cares about the future of its schools.
