Jesse Marx

Palm Springs Desert Sun

Lisa Middleton made history in Palm Springs on Tuesday night by becoming the first transgender person elected to a non-judicial office in California, joining attorney Christy Holstege in victory to the City Council.

With the majority of ballots counted, the gap between the top vote-getters and the others was significant. Shortly before 10 p.m., Henry Hampton, who came in a distant third, conceded.

"It's all because of all of you that we are here tonight, celebrating a victory, a historic victory for our city and for our state," Middleton told supporters inside Eight4Nine Restaurant & Lounge.

Middleton and Holstege each took about 30 percent of the vote.

Cheers erupted at both watch parties, as the candidates hugged family members and supporters.

Holstege, the first millennial to run for the City Council, said she was proud to be among the many young women who stepped up to run for office following the 2016 presidential race. This was her first time running for office.

“Now is when we can say we didn’t know what we were doing,” she joked. “We figured it out just with hard work.”

Hampton's tally was about 13 percent of the vote.

"It just wasn't in the cards tonight," he said, adding that he would move on with his life. "I'm just a normal citizen now."

Although the City Council race is technically a nonpartisan and Hampton has members of the LGBT community volunteering for his campaign, he was the subject of social media attacks on account of his political affiliation, and a mailer from two LGBT political groups. He previously pushed back against being portrayed as too conservative for Palm Springs, but told The Desert Sun on Tuesday that he didn't think his campaign hung on those criticisms.

READ MORE::Who is Lisa Middleton?

Robert Stone, Judy Deertrack and Glenn Flood were trailing with about 12 percent, 9 percent and 5 percent of the vote, respectively.

Stone, who along with Deertrack campaigned as outside reformers, said he wasn't surprised by the results and knew from the outset he'd be taking up "the entire entrenched political establishment." He also said he plans to write a new book about his experience of running for office. When asked if he's worried he's going to lose, he said, "Oh, I'm going to live a fabulous life, are you kidding?"

Minutes before the first results dropped, Deertrack vowed to "keep moving forward with passion."

Despite the low numbers, Flood, a former Pentagon spokesman, was given a warm reception at the Palm Canyon Roadhouse.

“It’s been a good run for me,” he said, adding that he'd learned a lot and planned to stay involved in city politics, “one way or another.”

Ameenah Fuller, who qualified as a write-in candidate about two weeks before the election, was not listed.

The Riverside County Registrar of Voters is expected to release the next round of results on Thursday evening.

By Tuesday, one out of every three registered voters — or 8,350 people — had weighed in, and the turnout was on pace to exceed the previous number of ballots cast in 2015. Many of the increased number of ballots appear to have come by mail.

Polls opened across the city at 7 a.m. and, although the voting was steady throughout the day, it also appeared to some of those monitoring the stations that fewer people had shown up to physically cast ballots. At the Palm Springs Public Library, which is usually one of the city's busiest polling places because it covers two precincts, only 33 people voted in the first hour.

Arlene Morse, a voter, said that the voting process was “fairly seamless” because she'd managed to get in and out in short order.

In an attempt to drum up last-minute support, campaign volunteers stood at intersections near polling places across the city.

READ MORE: Alleged bribes to former Palm Springs mayor are not too old to be prosecuted, judge says

The city has now completely shed its connections to the Steve Pougnet era. The former mayor was the centerpiece of a Riverside County District Attorney’s criminal complaint, alleging that he’d sold his vote — and his influence — in exchange for $375,000. He and two prominent developers have pleaded not guilty.

All of the candidates were competing for two open seats because longtime Council members Chris Mills and Ginny Foat chose not to seek re-election.

After the votes are certified at the end of this month, two new people will join the previous three who were elected in late 2015 after promising to restore trust in the process. The council is currently considering a new ordinance that would strengthen its ethics and disclosure rules.

Although transparency was a major topic on the campaign trail, the campaign season was punctuated by a secretive TV attack ad.

READ MORE: Palm Springs election: Sales tax increase heading toward approval

All of the current members of the City Council offered endorsements except Palm Springs Mayor Rob Moon. Moon did, however, make the rounds of watch parties on Tuesday night, thanking candidates for having the courage to put themselves in the public eye.

"In my book they are all winners," he told The Desert Sun. It's "just that two will get the most votes and therefore have the privilege of serving the city."

City Council members J.R. Roberts and Geoff Kors gave each other a high-five shortly after the results came in, putting their preferred candidates Middleton and Holstege on top right away.

When somebody told Roberts that he was "all smiles," he responded, "I never expected this. I never expected this level of a win."

Foat, who also endorsed Middleton and Holstege, said in the 14 years she'd been on the council, "I never had a woman running for council who I felt I could support [but] this year, when I found out that these two were running...I said to my wife, 'It's time, I can retire now.'"

Transgender Democratic candidates in two other races on Tuesday also won historic offices. In Virginia, Danica Roem won a seat to the statehouse, replacing longtime Republican legislator Robert G Marshall, who introduced a controversial bathroom bill. In Minnesota, Andrea Jenkins clinched the Ward 8 Minneapolis City Council seat.

READ MORE: A vicious Palm Springs election is approaching its end

Reporters Amy DiPierro, Rebecca Plevin, Alena Maschke, Barrett Newkirk and Colin Atagi contributed to this article.

Jesse Marx covers politics. Reach him at jesse.marx@desertsun.com or @marxjesse on Twitter.