Lynch Gains, but Garcetti Still Leads

With a substantial batch of absentee ballots counted Friday, challenger John Lynch gained some ground but Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti maintains a slender lead, election officials said.

After 74,535 absentee ballots were counted, Lynch inched closer to Garcetti by 1,554 votes, Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said.

With more than 2.1 million votes cast, Garcetti clings to a 5,282-vote lead. An estimated 115,000 ballots remain to be counted, and the next report is due Monday, McCormack said.

Despite the 1,554-vote snip into Garcetti’s lead, political analysts said the results of Friday’s count proved good news for the 55-year-old incumbent. For a variety of complicated reasons, analysts said, the math now works in Garcetti’s favor.

Lynch, a 50-year-old political newcomer who heads the district attorney’s Norwalk branch office, got 34,431 of the votes counted Friday, or 51.15%. Garcetti got 32,877, or 48.85%. The numbers don’t add up to 74,535 because not all ballots included a vote for district attorney.

Including the Friday count, the total now adds up this way: Garcetti, 1,061,880 votes, or 50.12%. Lynch, 1,056,598 votes, or 49.88%.

The ballots counted Friday were ones that voters mailed to election officials. Those ballots were thought by political observers to be more favorable to Lynch because he prevailed by a 55%-45% margin in a first batch of about 200,000 mail-in absentee ballots that were counted election night.

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If the remaining ballots split the same way that Friday’s did--that is, if Lynch takes only 51.15%--the challenger simply can’t make up the difference, analysts said.

The bulk of the remaining ballots, however, are those that were dropped off Tuesday at polling places. Those “walk-in” ballots are thought to be more favorable to Garcetti since he prevailed among ballots cast Tuesday at voting booths by 50.7% to 49.3%.

Dick Rosengarten, editor of California Political Week, summed up late Friday: “It’s not looking all that great for John Lynch.”

But he and other analysts stressed that anything remains possible.

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“The odds against an upset are increasing,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the Claremont Graduate School. “But we’ve got to wait until the whole thing is counted.”

Garcetti’s campaign manager, Matt Middlebrook, concurred.

“I’d say we’re pleased with how the numbers turned out today,” Middlebrook said. “But there are still votes to count, and we’ll have to see how they come up.”

Neither candidate was available Friday for comment. Rick Taylor, Lynch’s campaign manager, also could not be reached for comment.

The update due Monday is not expected to be the final tally, McCormack said. Officials have until Nov. 26 to complete the count.