5th District Supervisor: Hume holds narrow lead over Moreno for Sacramento County seat
The race to represent south Sacramento County on the Board of Supervisors was still too close to call as the polls closed but Elk Grove Councilman Pat Hume was beginning to extend his lead late Tuesday.
Hume stretched his lead to a 51%-to-48% margin over Cosumnes Community Services District president Jaclyn Moreno just before 11 p.m. Tuesday. Hume’s lead grew to 583 votes with 25,267 ballots counted.
Hume and Moreno have been locked in a sharp-elbowed battle for the 5th District supervisor’s seat, open for the first time in decades with the retirement of longtime supervisor Don Nottoli of Galt.
Both candidates lobbed volley after volley of attack ads in the campaign’s final weeks: Hume was portrayed as an anti-abortion Republican-in-hiding working in concert with the far right, who wanted to deny Elk Grove residents the vote. Moreno was depicted as a candidate whose costly policy ideas would raise taxes, lead to runaway homelessness near schools, libraries and local rivers, and threaten public safety.
Hume, one of Sacramento County’s longest-tenured council members, and the left-leaning Moreno of Elk Grove easily outdistanced former Elk Grove mayor Steve Ly and longshot former Elk Grove Unified School District trustee Alex Joe in the June primary. Hume leaned on his deep policy experience and broad support from local elected officials and law enforcement.
Mental health professional Moreno, backed by local labor and educators, positioned herself as a new voice for a Board of Supervisors that critics said was sorely in need of one.
That experience-vs.-ideas dynamic played out for much of the front-runners’ primary campaigns. Hume touted his work with regional leaders on the Capital Southeast Connector expressway linking Highway 50 to Interstate 5, and on transportation boards working to extend passenger rail and light rail service to Elk Grove and through Sacramento County.
Moreno pointed to her Cosumnes district’s climate action plan, with its aims to save water, reduce emissions and waste. She also made her experience as a mental health professional a major thrust of her campaign, saying her experience would best address the mental health and homelessness crises facing Sacramento County.
Candidates turn up the heat
But the sides’ positions — and attacks — sharpened in the run-up to November as worries over homelessness and public safety deepened in Sacramento County; and as conservatives nationally moved rightward, punctuated by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Democrat Moreno pushed Hume on his party affiliation; Hume had declined to state his party ID for the non-partisan seat representing purple south Sacramento County. Moreno labeled him in ads as a Republican who sides with climate deniers. Moreno earned the endorsement of Planned Parenthood and seized on Hume at an October candidates’ forum where the councilman declined to state his stance on a person’s right to abortion access.
“They want a pro-choice supervisor who will address climate change and look at policy through a climate lens,” Moreno said at the forum. “Women are under attack in this country and we need a person to strongly advocate for women’s bodily autonomy. The county is in a unique position to get this work done.”
Hume called the issue “settled law” and “not a supervisors’ issue.”
Hume embraced the conservative tag in the campaign’s final weeks, positioning himself in ads as the race’s public safety candidate with a “tough love” plan to address what he has called a “humanitarian, economic, environmental and public safety crisis.”
“People don’t feel safe in their neighborhoods,” Hume said at the October forum. “The No. 1 responsibility of government is to provide for the public defense, and we’re failing at that. People should feel safe.” He touted Elk Grove’s low homeless numbers while he was on the City Council.
Hume lined up endorsements from Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, former Sacramento County Sheriffs John McGinnis and Lou Blanas and a string of local law enforcement groups.
This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 8:29 PM.
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