Dan McDonald

Robert Meacher

Plumas County Supervisor Robert Meacher’s bid to win a seat in the state Assembly is still very much alive.

After trailing Republican Rick Bosetti by nearly 2,000 votes June 6, Meacher had closed the gap to 880 as of Monday morning, June 18.

“All things being equal, if the trend continues we have a good chance of pulling this thing out,” Meacher said. “But we might not know for another two weeks.”

The Genesee Democrat was the leading vote-getter in three of the four counties that still have votes remaining to be counted — Butte, Nevada and Placer.

Meacher said he was encouraged by the fact that the majority of the last-minute voters appeared to be Democrats. He said the party made a late push with a phone-call campaign urging voters to go to the polls.

If the trends in those counties continue, Meacher could pull even with, or even pass, Bosetti for second place in the District 1 primary.

Bosetti or Meacher would face Republican Brian Dahle in a November run-off.

Dahle, a Lassen County supervisor, had 34.4 percent of the vote as of Monday. Bosetti’s 27,352 votes accounted for 27.5 percent. Meacher had 26,472 votes (26.6 percent).

Green Party candidate David Edwards had 5,984 votes (6 percent) and Libertarian Charley Hooper had 5,503 (5.5 percent).

Meacher said he probably lost a lot of votes to Green and Libertarian candidates.

“Add in the votes from those two and I would have been the top vote-getter,” Meacher said the day after the primary. “I knew the dilution factor was going to be there, I just didn’t think it would play that much of a factor.”

As of Monday, there were still more than 30,000 votes to be counted in the four remaining District 1 counties. However, not all of the voters in Butte and Placer — which accounted for most of the uncounted ballots — are in District 1.

Ballots can be counted up to 28 days after the June 5 primary election. The results are expected to be certified by July 3.