No winner just yet, so ...

The final numbers are still being added up from Tuesday’s election for the 35th District state Senate seat, and so the most important result is still unknown. At this point, Republican Huntington Beach Assemblyman Tom Harman holds a narrow lead over Republican Diane Harkey, a Dana Point City Councilwoman. The winner of that race essentially is a shoe-in in the general election, facing Democrat Larry Caballero. With thousands of ballots being counted, the winner could change ? although typically the remaining ballots basically follow those that already have been counted.

Despite the suspense about who the winner will be, there are plenty of results we all can see already.

Chief among the obvious results is that few people thought it was worth voting. It appears that about 20% turnout will be the final count, but that includes a huge majority who voted absentee. Before the final absentee ballots are counted (and there are thousands remaining), 12.4% of voters mailed in their choice versus just 4.9% who took time out on Tuesday to go to the polls.

These numbers suggest a few conclusions.

It is possible that the near handful of elections in the past year have caused voter burnout ? or at least that the state Senate seat just didn’t strike many as terribly important. If that’s the case, that burnout should worry those running to replace Harman, who is termed out of his Assembly seat regardless of the result of Tuesday’s vote, and those considering runs for the City Council this fall. They all may have a tougher than usual job getting voters to care about their campaigns.

It is possible that the intense, negative campaigning that Harman and Harkey engaged in turned voters off, though that seems such an obvious answer we hesitate to suggest it. But the evidence certainly is there, and so the next wave of candidates should consider themselves warned.

Finally, whatever the final vote count is, it is clear that neither of the Republicans got any support that was close to a mandate. Whether it be Harman reaching out to the GOP establishment and the party’s more conservative members or Harkey getting in touch with more centrist voters, the winner of this election needs to see that the district is greater than the sum of his or her more narrow constituency.

That is, of course, unless the unthinkable happens and Caballero manages to win the general election on June 6.