Quick Take
Tony Nuñez, a longtime community leader and former journalist, has unseated incumbent Felipe Hernandez in the District 4 county supervisor race. This is the first time in recent memory that a challenger has defeated an incumbent in the primary for this race.
Longtime community leader and former journalist Tony Nuñez has defeated incumbent Felipe Hernandez in the race for the District 4 seat on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.
Nuñez has maintained a nearly 20 percentage-point lead over Hernandez over the past three weeks as vote tallies were posted since the June 2 primary election. Nuñez earned 50.07 % of the vote ( 3,944 of 8,510 votes cast) while Hernandez had 30.84% and third-place Elias Gonzales received 18.41%.
Nuñez won the race outright because he received at least a simple majority plus one (50% of votes cast + 1). If no candidate had reached that threshold, the top two vote-getters would head to a run-off election in November.
“[I’m] just really humbled by the trust voters have placed in me,” Nuñez told Lookout Friday afternoon. “Listening to voters was an incredible experience, and they have put their trust in me. And, it was not a small amount of people who put their trust in me.”
More than anything, Nuñez said he’s excited about the opportunity to continue serving the community in this role.
Now that Nuñez has won the District 4 seat, he will be required to vacate his role as board chair of the Pajaro Health Care District, which operates Watsonville Community Hospital, at a time when the health care facility is undergoing a leadership change with the impending departure of CEO Stephen Gray.
The focus for his last six months on the hospital board will be supporting it’s new interim CEO, Tim Moran, staff and leadership as best he can. “It’s a huge time of transition for the healthcare district and the hospital,” he said.
Throughout his campaign, Nuñez has said that he wants to increase economic development in South County — which he believes could be the key to meeting community needs.
He told Lookout in April that he’d like to work with Watsonville city officials to figure out ways to develop tourism in the city that’s been primarily driven by agriculture and nonprofits. The county — which currently faces a $23.2 million deficit for the 2026-27 fiscal year — is struggling to bring in additional revenue to fund programs that benefit community members, Nuñez said.
As supervisor, Nuñez said he’d like to address the impact a high cost of living has on families in Santa Cruz County — especially in South County. He previously told Lookout one of his ideas would be to create a pilot program that would ensure residents in the Pajaro Valley have access to low-cost childcare up to transitional kindergarten.
Another initiative Nuñez would like to create is a robust down-payment assistance program for local residents, specifically in South County, to help increase homeownership. But acknowledged that those things take money and time to achieve.
Nuñez’s victory marks a surprising upset: the first incumbent supervisor in recent history to outright lose a reelection bid in the primary election. Hernandez’s predecessor on the board of supervisors, Greg Caput, served three terms before retiring from public office. Before that, Caput unseated Tony Campos, who was seeking a fourth term, in the November 2010 election.
Hernandez has faced criticism from his South County constituents throughout his reelection bid over not taking a stance on a contentious proposal to build a battery storage facility outside of Watsonville, along with the county’s handling of a local ordinance meant to regulate these facilities. He also faced allegations that he removed one of his opponent’s campaign signs a week before the June 2 primary.
Hernandez did not respond to Lookout’s request for comment.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.
