CHARLOTTESVILLE (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — Jim Dillenbeck appears to have won the Rio district’s seat on the Albemarle County Public Schools, defeating incumbent Leslie Pryor. While only the in-person Election Day votes have been counted, Dillenbeck holds a lead in all five precincts.

Speaking to Cville Right Now at a campaign event, Dillenbeck had yet to declare victory, but felt optimistic. This was his fourth attempt to join the board in the past two years, and his second campaign. In his first run last year, Dillenbeck said he was up around 4% on eventual winner Chuck Pace before early votes were counted. 

On Tuesday at roughly the same time, he led Pryor 2,270-1,956, a 7.35% margin. He also made sure to do more campaigning during early voting. 

“I was out at the county office building every Thursday and Friday and Saturday,” he said, “and I’ve done a lot more canvassing in the neighborhoods.”

Pryor first joined the board in January, applying for the open seat following the death of Pace in December, which Dillenbeck also applied for. It was his second time applying for the open seat, as he had first applied for it in 2024 after Katrina Callsen stepped down following her election to House of Delegates. Cville Right Now was unable to reach Pryor on Election Night.

After four attempts to get on the Board, Dillenbeck joked he was tired, but optimistic.

“I have had so many positive interactions and conversations with people, not just today,” he said.

While Dillenbeck made sure not to celebrate a win he hasn’t officially gotten, much to the chagrin of some of his supporters present at the event. But once the win is official, he said the first thing he plans to do is to “spend a lot of time thanking the three dozen people that have helped me with the campaign in terms of volunteers today, volunteers with campaigning, prayer.”

As for how he plans on preparing to take the seat in January, Dillenbeck he hadn’t given it much thought, but later said he does already plan on contacting the school board in York County, “which has a similar demographic to Albemarle, but their test scores are enormously better than we have in Albemarle.”

“I’m going to do some research to figure out how we can improve things using ideas that have been proven,” he said.