Bass gains ground on Caruso in latest vote count for L.A. mayor
Rep. Karen Bass has gained ground in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, but still trails developer Rick Caruso, the latest election results show.
Caruso leads Bass, 40.5% to 38.8%, according to the latest vote count released Friday by Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.
Polling officials continue to count votes after Tuesday’s primary, an election that featured the first open-seat race for mayor in nearly a decade.
Caruso had a 5-point advantage on Wednesday morning, but mail-in ballots appear to have helped Bass in this latest update. The Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk said in a statement that Friday’s update included an additional 169,338 ballots.
County officials said Friday there are more than 500,000 votes left to count. Ballots postmarked by election day will be accepted through Tuesday.
Regardless of the final tally, both Caruso and Bass are assured of a spot in the November runoff because they topped the field of candidates.
In the closely watched race for Los Angeles city attorney, civil rights attorney Faisal Gill and former prosecutor Marina Torres were neck and neck in the race to succeed Mike Feuer. Gill led Torres by about 115 votes. Both are likely to advance to the November runoff.
Hugo Soto-Martinez, an organizer with Unite Here Local 11, and City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell also are likely headed to a runoff for the Echo Park-to-Hollywood council seat. Soto-Martinez led O’Farrell by about 40 votes, according to Friday’s results.
In the Eastside district stretching from Highland Park to Pico-Union, Councilman Gil Cedillo continued to lead community activist Eunisses Hernandez, 52% to 48%. There is no runoff in the race.
In the L.A. County sheriff’s race, there was little change in the overall percentages since Tuesday’s election.
The next five months of campaigning will likely amplify the partisan schism between Rick Caruso and Karen Bass.
Incumbent Sheriff Alex Villanueva dropped a percentage point, securing 33% of the vote. Retired Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna remained in second place, up a percentage point with nearly 26% of the vote. The pair will likely head to a runoff in November.
At least two other candidates, retired Cmdr. Eli Vera and LAX Police Chief Cecil Rhambo, have already thrown their support behind Luna. “I encourage my supporters to unite around Robert Luna so that we can put an end to the corrupt tenure of Alex Villanueva,” Rhambo said on Twitter.
Vera said he’d had several conversations with Luna during the campaign.
“I have found him to be a humble man, wise enough to recognize the pitfalls of those before him and servile enough to actively seek guidance as to refrain from repeating history,” Vera said in a statement.
The Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk will release the next update of votes on Tuesday.
Times staff writer Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report.
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