California Globe

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk released new voting totals in the Los Angeles Mayoral race late Thursday, with developer Rick Caruso still leading by just over 2,500 votes over Congresswoman Karen Bass (D-CA).

Following the election on Tuesday, Caruso quickly took the lead, and managed to hold it throughout the night despite results only trickling in due to many votes being mailed in or dropped off rather than voted on in-person, as well as the longer time it takes to verify signatures for mail-in votes.

By Wednesday morning, 44% of all votes in the county had been tallied, with Caruso being up by around 12,000 votes. In total,  51.25% of the vote, or 252,476 votes in, went tot Caruso, with Bass at 48.75% of the vote, or 240,194 votes in. By Thursday night, that lead shrunk, with Caruso currently at 273,941 votes, or 50.25%, and Bass at 271,246, or 49.75%. While 134,000 more ballots had been counted since the last update, only about 52,000 had come from LA City. The Registrar’s office noted on Friday morning that just under 900,000 ballots are left to count County-wide, with many expected to be from within Los Angeles city. However, officials noted that more are likely to come in as well, due to the requirement that ballots needed to be postmarked by election day, with the entire process expected to take weeks.

While the Bass campaign did not respond to the new closer figures, Caruso remained optimistic on Friday, Tweeting that his campaign had expected to see such changes in such a close race.

“As predicted, this is a close race,” Caruso said on Twitter. “There are hundreds of thousands of votes to count and as expected we are going to see different results each time. I continue to be cautiously optimistic about these numbers and look forward to the next series of results in the coming weeks.”

Election experts noted on Friday that the race will likely remain close until the final votes.

“During the Primary, Bass went from being significantly down to winning the whole thing,” explained Jan Ives, a Washington-based local election analyst, to the Globe on Friday. “But she also did that while not having the baggage she has now that caused all the polls to collapse in on her in the last few months. If by-mail ballots had started going out in August before all that, then I’d say it was pretty certain she would win. But everyone voting has made their choice after all the scandals and the big Council scandals with those racist recordings influencing their vote.”

“There are so many close races right now that haven’t been called. California is literally holding up seeing who gets the House. But the LA race will be part of the ongoing fluctuation in SoCal. It wasn’t a red wave like everyone expected, but if you look in Southern California, a lot more GOP, or, like Caruso, more centrist and DINO candidates have been doing well. That’s what Caruso represents. Bass was expected to have an almost automatic win, and Caruso stopped that. At the very least, that’s what he has done. But he has a good shot at winning still. Hey, he’s currently in the lead. And that’s why he is terrifying to more establishment Democrats, the ones who expect the next election to be ‘their turn’. He’s showing change is coming. Especially with how Latinos are voting, and especially with how people in LA are wanting change in things like crime and homelessness and housing.”

“These results will still probably go up and down for each candidate. The LA race is proving to be a close one where no one had expected it to be so. The next few weeks will be exciting for sure.”

More updates in the LA Mayoral race are expected soon.