As of Tuesday night, Kreis' challenger, April Van Dyke, had received nearly two-thirds of the votes in California's primary election. Those are unofficial results. Van Dyke is a Eureka-based attorney who represents indigent clients.
Deputy District Attorney Jessica Watson had also launched a write-in campaign for the seat. As of Tuesday night, she had received no votes.
In what are normally uneventful races for local judges, Kreis made headlines in February when California’s Commission on Judicial Performance began a formal investigation into his conduct, going back over a decade.
The commission has charged him with 19 counts, including prejudicial conduct as a judge. The charges allege that Kreis used an ethnic slur, did not disclose personal relationships with attorneys in cases he oversaw, should have recused himself from certain cases and used cocaine, among other things.
The investigation is ongoing, and Kreis has denied the allegations in his response to the counts.
“It’s not surprising that these salacious and false allegations, some of them over a decade old, are being made in a highly public way the same week ballots are out in a campaign for re-election," Kreis said in an emailed statement in February.
The reason for this investigation is confidential. The commission can review complaints about judges submitted by anyone, even anonymously, and complaints remain confidential.
The term for this nonpartisan Superior Court judge position is six years.
