Bono Mack was elected in 1998 to fill the 45th Congressional District seat held by her late husband, Sonny Bono.
Pougnet has been the mayor of Palm Springs since 2007. In his campaign, he criticized Bono Mack for the district's high foreclosure and unemployment rates.
The 45th District includes Palm Springs, Coachella, Hemet, Idyllwild, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Thermal, portions of Temecula.
Republican Congressman Ken Calvert managed to hold onto his seat in the 44th Congressional District with a wide margin of 58 percent over his Democratic opponent Bill Hedrick's 42 percent.
Two neo-Nazi candidates seeking public office in the Inland Empire have lost. Dan Schruender, a retired teacher whose blog features Nazi propaganda and earlier this year handed out fliers honoring Hitler's birthday, came in dead last among six candidates seeking election to the Rialto school board. However, he did receive more than 1,800 votes.
And Jeff Hall, the regional leader of the National Socialist Movement, lost his bid to serve as Riverside's water district representative. However, nearly 3 in 10 people voted for him.
In Riverside County, the mayor of /*San Jacinto*/ and three city councilmembers were ousted from office.
Mayor Dale Stubblefield and councilmembers James Ayers, John Mansperger and James Potts were all voted out of office.
The recall was in response to criminal charges filed against the councilmembers in an alleged campaign money-laundering scandal.
Stubblefield's and Mansperger's terms were due to end in January. Neither planned to seek re-election.
In /*San Bernardino County*/, Janice Rutherford will be the next supervisor for county district two. Rutherford took in 34,021 votes, amounting to 52 percent, beating out her opponent Paul Biane who got 31,945 votes, amounting to 48 percent.
In the race for mayor of Adelanto, Cari Thomas won the race, leading the pack with 39 percent of the votes, with Charley Glasper trailing with 33 percent and Ronald Beard at the bottom with 28 percent.
In the race for mayor of Colton, David Zamora won the race, raking in 3,894 votes, amounting to 59 percent, beating out opponent Kelly Chastain who garnered 2,662 votes, amounting to 41 percent.
In the race for mayor of Fontana, Acquanetta Warren won the race, leading the pack of six candidates with a decisive 55 percent of the votes, with other candidates trailing with votes ranging in 2 to 15 percent. <
Click here for a complete list of local election results.
City News Service contributed to this story
