LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Rep. Karen Bass has pulled slightly ahead of billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso as ballot-counting continues in the Los Angeles mayoral primary election — but the two are still headed for a November runoff.
Initial election results from the June 7 vote showed Caruso in the lead, but when the latest tally was released Tuesday afternoon, Bass had 41.05% of the vote, with Caruso at 38.29%. With no candidate receiving more than 50% of the vote, the top two finishers will advance to the November general election.
In another surprising reversal, Tuesday’s election update put community activist and public policy advocate Eunisses Hernandez in the lead over Councilman Gil Cedillo in the race to represent Council District 1. That race includes only two candidates and will be decided once all votes are counted.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Hernandez had a 292-vote lead with 50.65% of the vote to 49.35% for Cedillo.
In the race for city attorney civil rights attorney Faisal Gill was leading the seven-candidate field with 96,127 votes, or 22.01%. Former federal prosecutor Marina Torres was in second place with 20.27% of the vote, but financial law attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto was 1,683 votes behind with 19.88% of the vote, followed by Deputy City Attorney Richard Kim in fourth with 17.81% of the vote. The top two finishers will face off in November.
Labor organizer Hugo Soto-Martinez widened his lead over incumbent Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, with Soto-Martinez receiving 38.35% of the vote versus O’Farrell’s 33.88%. The two will advance to the November runoff.
An estimated 365,820 ballots from the June 7 election still remain to be tallied in the county, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office. The next update is scheduled to be released Friday.
Meanwhile, former Los Angeles City Councilmember Jan Perry leads Culver City Mayor Daniel W. Lee by 1,422 votes in their battle to take on Sen. Sydney Kamlager in the Nov. 8 general election for the 37th Congressional District seat, which was vacated by Bass. Perry has 13,866 votes (18.7%), Lee 12,444 (16.8%) and Kamlager 32,507 (43.9%).
All three candidates are Democrats.
The closest statewide race is for insurance commissioner where Republican Robert Howell’s lead over Democratic Assemblyman Marc Levine shrank to 13,692 votes in the race for second place, according to figures released Tuesday by the Secretary of State’s Office.
Howell, a cybersecurity equipment manufacturer, had been leading by 18,689 votes heading into Tuesday. Howell has 995,303 votes (18%) to 995,303 (17.8%) for Levine, D-San Rafael.
Incumbent Democrat Ricardo Lara leads with 1,805,029 votes (36.5%).