Alarcon’s Lead Over Katz Shrinks Sharply in State Senate Race

The tight Democratic race in a San Fernando Valley state Senate district grew tighter Friday after election officials counted thousands of absentee ballots and announced that Councilman Richard Alarcon’s lead over former Assemblyman Richard Katz had shrunk from nearly 800 votes to 27.

Alarcon had 37,695 votes, or 40.91% of ballots cast for all candidates in the primary race, compared to Katz with 37,668, or 40.88%, a difference of only 0.03%.

The new figures came after election workers tallied about 80,000 absentee ballots submitted on election day across the county. An additional 20,000 or so ballots remain to be counted, officials say, but most of those are provisional or write-in.

Provisional ballots are those submitted by voters whose names do not appear on the rolls but who are allowed to vote, pending a verification of their status. Those ballots are to be counted Tuesday.

Both camps expressed optimism Friday.

“The provisional ballots are extremely similar to the people who showed up to the polls,” Alarcon said. “Having won on election day, I anticipate we will see the same dynamics and win.”

Katz said his campaign put a great emphasis on absentee voters and suggested that this strategy helped him. He expects his efforts to also pay off with the remaining absentee and provisional voters.

“We made a very concentrated effort to recognize that the ballot was long and people may want to vote at home,” Katz said.

Marcia Ventura, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder, said her office counted as many absentee ballots as possible Friday but could not count them all that day.

Katz’s campaign staff, which looked over the shoulder of election workers during the count, estimated that about 600 absentee ballots from the 20th Senate District remained, along with about 700 provisional ballots. Ventura could not confirm those numbers.

The winner in the heavily Democratic district will face Republican Ollie McCaulley and Libertarian Linda Starr in November.