(This story was updated with new election results.)
In one of the Coachella Valley’s more high-profile races this year, Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez was leading comfortably against his lone challenger, La Quinta City Councilman Steve Sanchez, as they vied to represent the region on Riverside County’s elected board for the next four years.
With all election day votes counted, Perez, who sought a third full term representing the Fourth District, led with 59.9% of the vote, or 35,325 votes cast. Sanchez was at 40.1%, or 23,680 votes.
The results were not final and won’t be for weeks. Countywide, the voter registrar said an estimated 320,000 vote-by-mail ballots remained to be counted, some of which had not arrived. About 20% of those, or about 60,000, are likely in the Fourth District, given that there are five county supervisor districts.
Perez said in a statement late Tuesday night that his team was “encouraged by these early results, and we’ll continue to monitor the results as they come in.”
“This campaign has always been about putting Riverside County residents first, and I believe that message resonated,” Perez said. “Thank you to every voter who took the time to participate in this election.”
Reached by The Desert Sun, Sanchez declined to comment Tuesday night.
Riverside County’s Fourth District includes the valley’s nine cities and its unincorporated communities and stretches eastward to Blythe and California’s border with Arizona.
While the June 2 election is a primary in statewide and legislative races, with voters deciding who advances to November, Riverside County’s election rules are different. If a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, they win the seat and there will be no November general election — an outcome that is almost guaranteed in two-person races like the Sanchez-Perez matchup.
Perez was first appointed to fill the seat in 2017 after the death of John Benoit, then he won elections to two full terms, defeating Palm Desert Councilmember Jan Harnik in 2018 and running unopposed in 2022.Sanchez has been a La Quinta council member since 2016, and he’s touted his experience on multiple regional and county-level boards during his campaign.
The supervisor’s position is officially nonpartisan, but Sanchez is a Republican and Perez is a Democrat. Perez holds a massive fundraising advantage over Sanchez, with roughly $177,000 raised this year as of mid-May, per campaign finance reports. Sanchez’s campaign fund had raised roughly $13,000 this year as of mid-May.
Infrastructure, transparency among key issues in county race
Sanchez, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and commercial real estate agent, previously said he decided to run for the supervisor’s seat after observing what he called a “lack of leadership” from Perez. Sanchez said he, not Perez, has often been the first to raise issues with, for example, the Coachella Valley Animal Campus or Blythe’s Palo Verde Hospital.
He said he’s often led the charge on those issues while representing La Quinta on several regional agencies, including the Riverside County Local Agency Formation Commission, the Riverside County Airport Land Use Commission, the Southern California Association of Governments’ Regional Council and the Coachella Valley Animal Campus Commission.
Perez defended his record, saying his wide-ranging career in government — from the Coachella Valley Unified School District to the California State Assembly to the Coachella City Council — has sharpened his abilities as a policymaker and to “connect the dots” and bring partnerships together on regional issues.
Both candidates have also highlighted improving the Fourth District’s infrastructure as a campaign focus. Perez specifically noted the power outages and unsafe drinking water at mobile home parks in the east valley’s unincorporated areas, where county officials have relocated some people living in mobile home parks into safer living conditions.
With some luxury developments gaining approval in communities such as Thermal in recent years, Sanchez and Perez both offered support for requiring such plans to include some sort of public benefit contribution to improve the surrounding area’s infrastructure. Sanchez also pointed to the potential of the Thermal airport, saying it’s “primed for expansion” and could bolster the area’s economy.
Sanchez has also criticized Perez’s close ties with former Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez, who pleaded guilty in March to a felony charge that he illegally participated in votes as mayor in which he had a conflict of interest.
Hernandez was the chief of staff for Perez’s supervisorial office, and he was placed on administrative leave in October 2025 when he was initially charged with 10 counts of conflict of interest and perjury. Perez fired Hernandez from the position after his guilty plea, when Hernandez also resigned as mayor.
Perez, in response to Sanchez’s criticisms, emphasized that the charges against Hernandez were unrelated to his role in the supervisor’s office.
Tom Coulter covers local government and politics for The Desert Sun. Reach him at tcoulter@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Manny Perez leads Steve Sanchez for Riverside County supervisor
Reporting by Tom Coulter, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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