Live updates: Bredefeld leads Brandau for Fresno County District 2 supervisor seat
The battle for the District 2 seat on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors paired a conservative incumbent against a conservative challenger, and early Election Night returns suggest that it's the challenger who seized the day.
Supervisor Steve Brandau, first elected to fill a partial term representing northeast and northwest Fresno on the board, was falling short in his quest for a second full four-year term. Early returns Tuesday night showed Brandau trailing Garry Bredefeld, a two-term Fresno City Councilmember who was barred by term limits from running for reelection.
Bredefeld was leading early with 57% of the vote to Brandau's 42.7%.
Typically – but not always – returns compiled by the end of Election Night reflect percentages similar to the final confirmed result when all of the counting is completed and the election certified. That could take up to four weeks after Election Day.
"I'm very gratified by the results," Bredefeld said Tuesday after the early returns came out. "I think walking to 20,000 homes, walking 35 to 40 miles a week and talking to thousands of people helped them understand what I'm about."
"I''m going to bring real change and accountability to the Board of Supervisors," Bredefeld added. "Job number one is to change the 'good old boys' club on the board. That's what I'm going to do from Day 1."
Brandau and Bredefeld served as colleagues for several years on the Fresno City Council, often representing a solid pair of conservative votes on many issues before Brandau was elected to the county board in 2019.
But in this contest, Bredefeld's campaign was marked by sharp attacks on not only Brandau, but the rest of the Board of Supervisors, frequently criticizing the group as a "good old boys club" that lacked transparency in its dealings.
The sometimes combative Bredefeld complained about the county not going public last year with revelations of a clandestine Chinese-owned laboratory in a Reedley warehouse as well as the board's approval in 2023 to move a needle and pipe program for drug addicts from a mobile unit in central Fresno into the county Department of Public Health's lobby on Fulton Street in downtown Fresno.
In his campaign, Brandau countered that he has successfully collaborated with his board colleagues on a wide range of issues, from passing a "Parents Matter" Act that would establish a panel of political appointees to screen controversial books for possible segregation from children's sections of public libraries to winning approval for new laws to bar camping by the homeless on public property including penalties up to jail or fines.
"It's certainly not what I was looking for, not what I was hoping for, but it is what it is," Brandau told The Bee Tuesday night.
Brandau noted that Bredefeld had a sizable advantage in both fundraising and campaign spending. "I think that's always a real big factor; it allows you to do more pieces in the mail and buy more radio spots," he said. "Money plays a big part in politics, and he had a strong advantage over me in the money department."
On the Fresno City Council, Bredefeld helped spearhead a similar homeless camping ban on public property, also with penalties including fines or jail time.
The contest was also marked by a lawsuit filed by the county seeking to bar Bredefeld and another City Council member, Luis Chavez, from transferring funds from their City Council campaign committees to their runs for the Board of Supervisors. But a Fresno County judge ruled in favor of Bredefeld and Chavez.
In the months following the March primary, in which Bredefeld was the top vote-getter , Bredefeld outspent Brandau's campaign by more than three to one. Through the entire 2023-24 election cycle, including more than $221,000 in transferred campaign funds, Bredefeld's campaign raised more than three times as much money as Brandau.
In the March primary, Bredefeld garnered 37.8% of the votes, while Brandau forced a runoff with 28.1%.
