For the first time in 11 years, there’s a new Riverside County sheriff in town.

Sheriff Stan Sniff conceded defeat Wednesday, Nov. 7 to sheriff’s Lt. Chad Bianco in the expensive and contentious race to lead the county’s top law enforcement agency.

Results posted by the county Registrar of Voters early Wednesday showed Bianco, who led in election night returns, adding to his lead. He has 57 percent of the vote to Sniff’s 43 percent.

“The public has spoken and decided upon a change in direction,” Sniff said via text message. “I am very proud of the men and women of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, particularly in light of the work we’ve done to reduce crime — despite tough budget constraints in recent years caused by the county’s stark fiscal challenges.”

“ … After 43 years of uniformed law enforcement service I will soon leave the public arena, retiring from government service to transition to other awaiting aspects of life, including a return to my longtime interest in overseas travel and exploration.”

Sniff added: “It has been an absolute honor to serve our public as Riverside County’s 13th Sheriff over these past 11 years, and that period has been the highlight of my four-plus decades of public service. I would like to thank the residents of Riverside County for the incredible opportunity.”

In an emailed statement, Bianco said: “From the bottom of my heart I thank the voters of Riverside County who put their trust in me to bring change to the Sheriff’s Department. Their voice was overwhelming in this election.”

“I congratulate Sheriff Sniff on his hard-fought campaign and I look forward to working with his team to ensure that we have a smooth transition for the residents of Riverside County.”

More than 200,000 vote-by-mail, 45,000 provisional and 5,000 damaged ballots remain to be counted. But Bianco’s lead as of Wednesday morning is almost 34,000 votes.

With thousands of employees and a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Sheriff’s Department is the contract police agency for 17 of the county’s 28 cities. The department also is responsible for protecting unincorporated communities, running five jails, and providing courthouse security and search-and-rescue operations.

Bianco’s win comes two years after he lost decisively to Sniff, who was appointed sheriff by the Board of Supervisors in 2007 to serve the unexpired term of Bob Doyle when he went to the state parole board.

Sniff, 69, won four-year terms in 2010 and 2014. But he faced his toughest challenge this year. The Riverside Sheriffs’ Association, the union representing deputies and other law enforcement personnel, spent more than $850,000 on Bianco’s candidacy.

Union officials said Sniff was a poor leader who wasn’t open to new ideas and didn’t talk to deputies. They also were upset that Sniff required deputies to wear body cameras without consulting with the union first.

Bianco said Sniff’s mismanagement led to poor deputy morale and jeopardized public safety through the early release of tens of thousands of jail inmates. Sniff countered that Bianco was beholden to a union determined to run his department.

Sniff also clashed with supervisors over budget matters. The sheriff said board-approved contracts caused his labor costs to soar, and he said board budget cuts forced him to take deputy patrols in unincorporated areas to bare-bones levels and to use overtime to keep the county’s jails open.

That angered supervisors who thought the sheriff threw them under the bus when he knew the money wasn’t there to keep boosting his budget. Sniff also faced criticism for panning the work of KPMG, a private consulting firm hired by the board to find savings and efficiencies for a cash-strapped county government.

Sniff countered it’s his job to tell supervisors the truth about his budget.

The race pitted law enforcement unions, who lined up behind Bianco, against retired police chiefs, many of whom endorsed Sniff. Supervisors Kevin Jeffries, John Tavaglione and Marion Ashley endorsed Sniff while supervisors V. Manuel Perez and Chuck Washington, along with Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, and state Sen. Jeff Stone, R-La Quinta, backed Bianco.

There were warning signs for Sniff in the June primary, which featured three challengers. Bianco finished first in the primary, more than 14,000 votes ahead of Sniff, and 68 percent of primary voters chose someone other than the incumbent.

Hoping to appeal to the county’s plurality of Democratic voters, Sniff, who like Bianco is a Republican, touted his department’s diversity in campaign ads.

The race was one of the most expensive of the Inland election cycle. Sniff and Bianco raised more than $1.5 million combined for their campaigns in a county with no limits on how much candidates for county office can raise and spend.

Born on an Air Force base in Utah, Bianco, 51, was hired by the department in 1993. He campaigned on a promise to mend fences with deputies and focus on community-oriented policing while bringing more transparency to the budget process.

“I believe that every person who desires a concealed weapons permit, otherwise not prevented by law or psychological concern, should be granted a permit,” Bianco said on his campaign website. Sniff had been criticized for delays in processing concealed-carry permits.

Bianco also has said he strongly opposes California’s so-called “sanctuary state” law, intended to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation by limiting local law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The new sheriff takes office in January.