Christopher Parosa leading James Cleavenger in 2024 Lane County district attorney race
Early voting results released at 11 p.m. Tuesday indicate Christopher Parosa is leading the Lane County District Attorney's race by a sizeable margin.
The first round of returns counted 75,784 of ballots county-wide, for about a 27% turnout. The last Lane County May election in a presidential year had about 47% turnout. Lane County was scheduled to post the next round of results at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
Tuesday's election could decide who will replace Lane County District Attorney Patty Perlow, who chose to retire from office after 34 years of working in Eugene.
The district attorney is the county's lead prosecutor who is elected to a four-year term in office. They are charged with leading a team of deputy district attorneys to prosecute people suspected of crimes, direct investigations and recommend sentences.
The two candidates running are Christopher Parosa, the chief deputy district attorney in Lane County, and James Cleavenger, who works as the Oakridge city administrator and a reserve Oakridge police officer.
Cleavenger previously challenged Perlow for district attorney in 2020.
Campaign contributions in Lane County district attorney primary election
Cleavenger received less than $750 in total contributions to his campaign, according to the latest update from the Oregon campaign finance database.
Incumbent and uncontested Lane County Sheriff Cliff Harold gave his campaign a $500 loan and received $401 in cash contributions.
Parosa received a total of $63,742 in campaign contributions, with $60,058 of that total coming from cash contributions and $3,684 coming from non-monetary donations.
Contributions of at least $2,000 included:
$5,000 cash from Wildish Land Company
$5,000 cash from Sierra Pacific Industries
$5,000 cash from Olsson Industrial electric
$5,000 cash from John Murphy, owner of Murphy Plywood
$4,000 cash from Lane County Prosecuting Attorneys
$3,684 non-monetary from Chuck Hare, owner of Delux Transportation
$2,500 cash from Deborah Parosa, immediate family
$2,500 cash from Giustina Resources
$2,000 cash from Lane Professional Firefighters Association
$2,000 cash from Aaron Thomas, owner of Thomas and sons Distributors
Haleigh Kochanski is a breaking news and public safety reporter for The Register-Guard. You may reach her at HKochanski@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Election results: Parosa leads Cleavenger for Lane County DA
