Santa Rosa’s Chris Rogers appears to have won the District 2 Assembly race.

Longtime Santa Rosa City Council member and former Mayor Chris Rogers says he thinks he has enough votes to know he’s heading to the Statehouse in January to represent California’s sprawling Congressional District 2, which stretches from Santa Rosa to Santa Rosa. Roses to the Oregon border.

Early results showed Rogers, 37, ahead of his Republican challenger, Crescent City resident and Del Norte County School Board member Michael Greer, as votes were tallied Tuesday night. When the first rounds of voting took place Tuesday night, Rogers was ahead with a comfortable lead of about 70% in Sonoma County and countywide. Rogers led Humboldt County with 63% of the vote.

In a telephone interview just after 9 p.m., Rogers claimed victory in the race.

“We can say with confidence that we will win this race,” Rogers said.

Speaking at a Republican party in the Crescent City, Greer said he was not ready to concede but acknowledged that an early return does not bode well for an upset victory.

The Press Democrat will rely on information from election officials before confirming the bond’s approval because not everyone who received a ballot will vote.

Democratic candidates have historically won the district with about 70% of the vote. There were about 336,000 registered voters, according to an October report from the California Secretary of State.

“We’ve talked throughout the campaign until today about how important it was to make sure the entire district felt like their vote mattered,” Rogers said. “In Del Norte, Trinity and Humboldt counties, they feel abandoned in Sacramento.”

Rogers visited all five counties on Election Day while traveling with members of his campaign staff. “We are committed to leading the way so that every corner of this county feels represented and has a representative who cares about our collective future.”

Greer also campaigned aggressively, telling The Press Democrat that he put more than 20,000 miles on his car and made significant investments in his personal finances to fund his efforts. But he couldn’t overcome the area’s political demographics.

“I know I had to do a lot of crossover voting,” Greer said, and that vote was not reflected in early vote counts in Sonoma County and other Democratic-leaning parts of the county. “I expect more. I don’t expect the situation to remain the same as it is now. But if this doesn’t happen to me, I’ll move on.”

If not, “I will still hold the Legislature accountable” and serve on the school board, he said.

If the results hold, Rogers will replace Assemblyman Jim Wood, a Healdsburg Democrat who rose to become speaker pro tempore after a long tenure as chairman of the Assembly Health Committee. Wood announced his retirement in November.

First elected to the City Council in 2016, Rogers assumed elected office shortly before the deadly firestorm in 2017 and remained throughout the recovery, becoming the city’s youngest mayor ever from December 2020 to December 2022. career as a man on the outsider side supporting progressive economic policies such as free universal health care and universal basic income programm for low-income families in Sonoma County.

He is also known as an advocate for policy responses to climate change and an advocate for public transportation, serving for many years on the board of directors of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit.

Although the general election was heavily tilted in his favor, Rogers fought for his seat in the legislature, emerging as the leading Democrat in the competitive primary that followed Wood’s surprise announcement, making the race one of the most competitive on the North Shore in recent memory.

Rogers’ spending was significantly outpaced by Healdsburg Councilman Ariel Kelly and California Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks, who were endorsed by Wood.

Rogers came out on top largely due to his popularity among Santa Rosa voters. Since then, he’s spent a lot of time exploring the northern parts of the county while trying to become a new dad in May. Before being elected to the City Council, he worked as a staffer for State Sen. Mike McGuire, who is known for his aggressive travel schedule around the district.

You can reach staff writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or [email protected]. Follow him on X (Twitter) @AndrewGraham88.