A runoff election for District 7 of the City Council is nearly inevitable between Ryan Chin and Darrell Fong. Neither of the candidates has enough votes to be declared the winner, and with only 4,000 provisional ballots left to process, not much is expected to change.

“With 4,000 ballots left, I would suspect that the race is close to final,” Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said. “Other than final, this is about as final as it’s going to get.”

A candidate needs at least 50 percent of the vote plus one to win. Chin has 37.57 percent and Fong has 32.6 percent, as of 3:22 p.m. today.

You can view the updated election results here.

You can view a map of the geographical distribution of votes here.

Fong said we can expect to see more of the same from his campaign in the lead up to the runoff election.

“The message is going to change,” he said. “We might fine tune it a little bit, but it’s not going to change,” Fong said.

Chin intends on maintaining the course of his campaign as well.

“The only thing we may change is helping people understand that I’m clearly the best person for District 7,” Chin said.

He said he plans to highlight his business experience, background in education and record of community service.

Photos courtesy of Staff Reporter Katheen Haley.