LOS ANGELES, CA — Mayor Karen Bass held a razor-thin lead over City Councilwoman Nithya Raman early Tuesday night in a closely watched race that could take days to decide.
Returns released at 9:44 p.m. by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's Office showed Bass with 295,992 votes, or 50.78%, compared to Raman's 286,951 votes, or 49.22%.
The initial results included mail-in ballots received and processed before Election Day, along with ballots cast during early in-person voting. With thousands of ballots still to be counted, the outcome could remain uncertain for days.
The final turnout won't be known until all ballots are counted, but past elections offer some perspective. As of 9:44 p.m., about 1.7 million ballots had been counted in Los Angeles County, representing 28.93% of registered voters. By comparison, turnout in the 2024 general election was 66.12%. If turnout reaches a similar level this year, fewer than half of the expected ballots have been counted so far.
County election officials are set to continue counting ballots until Nov. 27 at the latest. The first post-Election Night tally is scheduled to be released Wednesday between 4 and 5 p.m.
The tight race comes after a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released last week showed Bass and Raman tied at 40% support among likely voters, with 19% undecided.
Bass is seeking a second term as mayor of the nation's second-largest city.
Voters across Los Angeles County also cast ballots Tuesday in a series of local races and on city and county ballot measures.
Follow live election results below for the Los Angeles mayor's race, county contests and local ballot measures as votes are tallied.
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Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass is seeking a second term against City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, a former ally who has become one of her most vocal critics.
Voters chose between John McKinney, a longtime Los Angeles County prosecutor, and Marissa Roy, a deputy state attorney general, after incumbent City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto was eliminated in the June primary.
Can't see the widgets? Click here for all county election results. Be sure to refresh this page for the latest.
Two City Council seats were on the ballot.
With Councilman Bob Blumenfield termed out, voters in the western San Fernando Valley's District 3 chose between businessman Tim Gaspar and longtime government aide Barri Worth Girvan.
In South Los Angeles, Jose Ugarte, a former top aide to termed-out District 9 Councilman Curren Price, faced community and labor organizer Estuardo Mazariegos.
Measure TE would exempt owners of homes damaged or destroyed in the 2025 Palisades Fire from the city's "mansion tax" if they sell their properties within five years of the fire.
Measure LA would overhaul several aspects of city government, including establishing a two-year budget cycle, requiring long-term infrastructure planning and changing how public works projects and city contracts are managed.
Measure PL would replace LA's seven area planning commissions with a single citywide appeals commission and change how certain land-use and development decisions are reviewed and approved.
Measure EE would strengthen oversight of the police and fire departments, increase penalties for campaign finance violations and reduce the required minimum number of City Council meetings from three days a week to once a week, among other changes.
Measure PRK would gradually double the city's minimum funding requirement for parks and recreation over 10 years, directing more existing city funds toward those services without raising taxes.
Measure PRT would change how the city's airport, harbor and water and power departments operate, including allowing longer leases, changing airport commission representation and requiring funding for public waterfront access.
Measure SC would simplify campaign finance rules for LA Unified school board elections, largely aligning them with the rules governing mayoral candidates.
Measure FD would increase the city's sales tax by half a percentage point to raise an estimated $345 million annually for the Los Angeles Fire Department, including staffing, equipment, fire stations and wildfire prevention.
There is one countywide race.
Incumbent Sheriff Robert Luna is facing former sheriff Alex Villanueva, whom Luna defeated in 2022.
Voters considered two county-level ballot questions.
Measure A would prohibit strikes by district attorney investigators, medical examiners, and lifeguards and other employees in the county fire, sheriff's and medical examiner's departments, while establishing a binding arbitration process for resolving labor disputes with public safety employee unions.
Measure E would increase the independence of the upcoming county Ethics Commission and Office of Ethics Compliance. It would grant ethics officials the power to investigate misconduct by county officials, candidates, lobbyists and contractors; issue subpoenas and fine violators up to $15,000 per offense.
California voters headed to the polls Tuesday, facing high gas and grocery prices, the effects of climate change on wildfires and rising seas amid a shortage in insurance coverage and the ever-present housing affordability crisis.
The governor's race was somewhat anticlimactic following a chaotic primary with a crowded field of candidates roiled when the frontrunner was forced to step down amid sexual assault allegations. Since then, Becerra maintained a steady lead over Hilton in the polls.
In the final days of the election, a new SurveyUSA poll showed Becerra with a 22-point lead.
Click here for real-time results in the California Governor's races.
All 52 of California's Congressional seats were on the ballot.
Congressional races across California were under intense scrutiny following voter approval of Proposition 50, a partisan redistricting measure expected to reshape the state's political map. Thanks to the redistricting, only a handful of districts were truly competitive. Democrats hoped to flip as many as five Republican House seats in a bid to overturn the GOP's slim House majority.
Democrats think they can flip as many as five seats, with four seeming very much in reach, according to the polls. Both parties are spending like control of the House is on the line.
Click here for real-time results in California's Congressional races.
There were 14 statewide propositions on the ballot this week. Arguably, the most hot-button ballot initiatives involve taxation. Proposition 40 is the highly discussed billionaire tax, while Propositions 41 and 42 aim to counter the measure. Proposition 3 also addresses taxes on the state's highest earners.
Click here for real-time results for all of California's ballot measures.
As of September, the California Secretary of State reported that 23,164,977 Californians were registered to vote, which accounts for more than 85% of the state's eligible voting population.
Not surprisingly, there are far more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state, with 45% for the former and 25% for the latter.
In LA County, the rate of voter registration is high. As of September, it was 88.84% — with nearly 51% of voters registered as Democrats and 18.55% as Republicans.
Based on early voting, California is poised to see 60% of registered voters head to the polls, a record for a gubernatorial race, Paul Mitchell, of political data analysis firm Political Data told The San Francisco Chronicle.
While the governor's race was expected to be called early Tuesday, it's California's congressional races and ballot measures that are poised to offer the biggest upsets and surprises. Hanging in the balance is control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mitchell predicted that five key redrawn congressional districts appear poised to deliver Democratic victories driven, in part, by high turnout among Latino voters.
"I think the blue wave is on track," Mitchell told The Chronicle. "It seems to be on track that we're going to have a really strong turnout."
So far, voter turnout has been higher in competitive races such as the Central Valley's District 22 and the 48th Congressional District in San Diego — two districts Democrats hope to flip after their mid-decade gerrymander.
As of Oct. 29, Democratic voters represented 51% of ballots returned statewide compared to just 28% among Republican voters, according to the Political Data tracker.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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