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A tight race between two candidates for Salt Lake City School District's Board of Education saw a new leader emerge after revised voting results were released Friday.
After polls closed Tuesday evening, Jason Stevenson trailed incumbent board president Heather Bennett by eight votes.
But updated vote counts show Stevenson receiving a bump from mail-in ballots, pushing the challenger ahead by 16 votes.
All numbers are incomplete, as official primary results will not be completed until the state's canvass July 12.
"I'm definitely going to sit tight on really saying that I won," Stevenson said.
While the updated tallies knock Bennett out of the top position for her school board seat, she appears to have secured her place on November's ballot after receiving 37 percent of votes counted by Friday.
The two other candidates for the school board seat trailed Bennett by more than 515 votes and 757 votes, respectively.
"I'm very grateful to be on the ballot in the November and that's what counts at this point," Bennett said.
Stevenson said his current front-runner status does not affect his strategy or confidence for the campaign moving forward.
He said the close results are indicative of the quality of candidates — himself and his opponent.
"I'm looking forward to continuing this discussion on the front porches and around the dinner tables of Salt Lake City," Stevenson said.
Friday's vote totals reinforced many of Tuesday's primary results for local school board races.
Elsewhere in the Salt Lake City School District, Tiffany Sandberg and Teresa Organista appear headed to a November matchup after earning 50 percent of the vote and 29 percent of the vote, respectively. In Jordan School District, Bryce Dunford and Chip Dawson maintained their leads for the District 5 race, earning 41 percent and 30 percent, respectively.
But at least one race in Utah County remained too close to call.
The Alpine Board of Education's District 7 race appeared to have its winner in Sara Hacken, with 49 percent of the vote. But Joe Rivest and Kirby Glad remained neck-and-neck for second place after Friday's updated totals showed Rivest ahead by 27 votes.
Mark Clement and Rachel Thacker remained in the lead for Alpine's District 4 race, as did Scott Carlson and Miriam Ellis in District 6.
The presumptive winners of Nebo School District's race in District 3 race, Randy Boothe and Shauna Warnick, maintained their lead over Layne Moody.
Twitter: @bjaminwood