Kelly Martinez officially took office on Jan. 2. She is the first woman to lead the $1.1 billion department, and the first Democrat elected to the job in 50-plus years.
As of Monday night, Kelly Martinez led John Hemmerling by roughly 138,000 votes, with an estimated 80,000 left to count. She is set to become San Diego County's first female sheriff.
With 136,658 votes so far, Martinez was ahead of six other candidates vying for sheriff in Tuesday's election, following the retirement earlier this year of longtime sheriff's department head Bill Gore.