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The hospital board race is 80 votes apart. Arizona's recount law doesn't cover it.

Bruce Gwynn leads Leanne Worthen by 80 votes for a seat on the board that owns Yuma's hospital. There's no automatic recount for this race, however close it ends. Here's what happens next, and why this little board draws the attention it does.

Dan Bustard

Founder & Publisher

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The main entrance of the hospital campus in Yuma, photographed in 2018 when it was Yuma Regional Medical Center.
The main entrance of what was then Yuma Regional Medical Center, now Onvida Health, in 2018. Hospital District No. 1 owns the land and buildings. Credit: Photo: Jesuiseduardo / Wikimedia Commons, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
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Eighty.

That's the gap between Bruce Gwynn and Leanne Worthen for the third seat on the Yuma County Hospital District No. 1 board, as of the County's last upload of election night at about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. Gwynn had 9,585 votes. Worthen had 9,505.

It flipped overnight. When the first early ballots posted Tuesday night, Worthen was ahead by 6.

And it's not over. The County listed 20,197 ballots still pending Wednesday morning, most of them early ballots dropped off on Election Day. That's a lot of paper sitting next to an 80-vote gap.

Here's the part most people won't expect.

No automatic recount, however close

Arizona orders an automatic recount when the final margin between two candidates is half a percent or less of the votes they received. Eighty out of 19,090 is about 0.42 percent. For most offices, that would land inside the line.

Not this one.

The same law, A.R.S. 16-661, carves out school district boards, community college boards and "boards of other special districts." A hospital district is a special district. So whatever the margin is when the County finishes counting, the law doesn't send it back through the machines.

That same exemption covers the Yuma Union High School District race (147 votes Wednesday morning), the Gadsden Elementary board race (11 votes) and the Arizona Western College District 3 seat.

So the count is the count. That's one reason this weekend's signature deadline matters. If the County couldn't match the signature on your early ballot, you have until 5 p.m. Sunday to fix it.

Who's actually losing a seat

Six people ran for three seats. The district's own website lists three of them as sitting board members: Dr. Ron Clark, the vice chairman; Frances Davison, the secretary-treasurer; and Glenn Gimbut.

Here's where everybody stood Wednesday morning:

  • Ron Clark: 13,461
  • Frances Davison: 9,940
  • Bruce Gwynn: 9,585
  • Leanne Worthen: 9,505
  • Glenn Gimbut: 6,432
  • Josh Finkbeiner: 5,381

If that order holds, Clark and Davison, both running for re-election, keep their seats. Gimbut wouldn't win a new term. The third seat goes to Gwynn or Worthen.

Notice who's in that race for third.

Gwynn and Worthen are two of the three candidates blogger Bob Cuckler says a super PAC promoted with ads this fall. Finkbeiner is the third. We still haven't seen those ads ourselves. We don't know what they cost or who paid for them. Keep that in mind.

The money, one more time

On Nov. 3 we reported that the Arizona Grassroots Action PAC, a federal super PAC with a mailing address in Alexandria, Va., took in $38,500 from nine people between Sept. 18 and Sept. 30. Eight of them appear on Onvida Health's leadership page, including President and CEO Robert Trenschel, who gave $6,000. It was the only money the PAC had raised since January 2025.

Its federal report showed no independent spending. That's expected. The FEC doesn't track local races.

Giving to a super PAC is legal. Nothing we've found shows any of the three candidates asked for that help, worked with the PAC or even knew about it. That was true Tuesday. It's still true.

Local spending on a hospital district race gets reported to Yuma County Election Services, not the FEC. The County doesn't post those reports online. Anyone can ask for them, and they're the only place an answer to "did this PAC spend money here" would show up.

Why a landlord board gets this kind of attention

Most of Yuma couldn't name a single member of this board. Fair enough. Its job sounds dull.

The district has owned the land and the buildings under the hospital since 1973. State law requires it to lease them to a nonprofit that runs a hospital. Today that's Onvida, which used to be Yuma Regional Medical Center. According to the district, the board oversees that arrangement and "advises and considers substantial improvements to the land."

Dull, until it wasn't.

  • 2020: YRMC sued the district over the lease. The district said the hospital had stopped sharing information and refused to pay the district's administrative expenses, including a $75,000 attorney bill. The hospital said the district doesn't run hospital operations and pointed out the lease ran to 2031.
  • 2022: In the middle of that fight, the board approved about $70 million in hospital facility improvements.
  • 2023: To pay its lawyers, the district had a secondary property tax added to County tax bills. The Goldwater Institute challenged it. The Tax Court sided with the district in 2024.
  • Sept. 2024: The two sides settled. The new lease gives the district "meaningful information" and a say on the hospital's facilities, according to the announcement at the time.
  • 2025: Onvida agreed to repay all of the taxes levied for the district's legal fees, about $4.16 million, credited on property owners' 2025 tax statements. A court dismissed Goldwater's appeal as moot on Aug. 15.

None of that tells you why anybody wrote a check to a super PAC this fall. It does tell you this board has had real fights with the hospital, and real money has moved because of them.

What's next

  • The count. The County keeps tabulating until every eligible ballot is done. We'll update when it posts.
  • Sunday, Nov. 8, 5 p.m. Deadline to fix early ballot signature problems.
  • By Nov. 19. The Board of Supervisors has to canvass the results. Until then, everything here is unofficial.
  • The board itself. The district has posted an executive session for Thursday, Nov. 5, and its regular monthly meeting for Wednesday, Nov. 11, both at 5:30 p.m. at 228 S. Madison Ave. Agendas are on the district's website. Meetings are livestreamed on the district's Facebook page.

The scorecard

Verified - Gwynn leads Worthen by 80 votes as of the 1:31 a.m. Nov. 4 upload, with 20,197 ballots pending countywide. - Arizona's automatic recount law exempts special district boards, school boards and community college boards. - The district's website lists Clark, Davison and Gimbut as current board members. Gimbut is running fifth. - All numbers are from the County's 1:31 a.m. Wednesday update. - Eight of the PAC's nine September donors appear on Onvida's leadership page. - Onvida repaid about $4.16 million in district litigation taxes under the 2024 settlement.

Not verified - Whether the PAC, or anyone else, ran ads in this race, what they cost and who paid. - Whether any candidate knew about or coordinated with the PAC. No record we've seen says so. - Which three seats were up. The website listing and the ballot point to Clark's, Davison's and Gimbut's, but we haven't confirmed the terms.

My opinion

A board most of Yuma never thinks about just saw people who run the hospital it oversees put $38,500 into a super PAC weeks before its election. Now it's about to seat a new member by the thinnest margin on the ballot, with no recount. Whoever wins, the next few board meetings are worth showing up for.

Ask them yourself

These are still open:

1. To the Arizona Grassroots Action PAC: Did you spend money on the Yuma hospital board race? How much, on what, and for whom? 2. To the Onvida leaders who gave: Why this PAC, and why now? 3. To Gwynn, Worthen and Finkbeiner: Did you know about the PAC or its ads before Election Day?

Our Nov. 3 story said we hadn't heard back from Onvida, the PAC or the three candidates. If they answer, I'll print it.

More 2026 election coverage is in the Yuma Informed Election Center.

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