Congressional candidate Norman Solomon conceded defeat Tuesday morning after the final vote tally for the June 5 primary election showed Republican candidate Daniel Roberts ahead in votes. Jared Huffman was the top vote getter in the district, receiving 37 percent of the votes.
Ballot counting has continued since the election, with Solomon, a West Marin author and anti-war activist, locked in a nail-bitingly close race for second place with Roberts, a Tiburon resident, Vietnam War veteran and CEO of a San Francisco investment firm. Roberts describes himself as a moderate Republican who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative.
But with fewer than 1,000 ballots left to be counted and Roberts about 200 votes ahead, Solomon admitted defeat.
That means Roberts will square off with Assemblymember Jared Huffman in the November race. And because the Second Congressional District—which stretches from Marin County to the Oregon border— is largely Democratic, it’s all but certain that Huffman will be heading to Washington in 2013.
On Tuesday, Solomon thanked voters, donors and campaign volunteers for the yearlong grassroots campaign.
"The ideals that have propelled this campaign will continue to energize people across our congressional district in the years ahead,” Solomon said in a statement. “To overcome a status quo of perpetual war, extreme Wall Street power, chronic inequities and environmental degradation, we will keep working for peace, social justice, a healthy planet -- and genuine democracy.”
Reached by phone Tuesday, Roberts said he was working hard on forming alliances and was optimistic heading into November.
"I didn’t enter this to come in second," he told Petaluma Patch. "I think we can win it and it will be first time in 40 years many people in this district haven’t felt disenfranchised."
