GOP's Stern Squeaks Into 46th Assembly Runoff

The day after the June 5 primary election, that Brian Johnson had finished second in the 46th District Assembly race to Adrin Nazarian, Councilman Paul Krekorian's chief of staff, which would put the two against each other in a November runoff.

Not so fast. Now, with all the votes tallied, Republican Jay Stern has edged out Johnson for the No. 2 position by a handful of votes, according to the Los Angeles Daily News, which reports that with 12 votes left to be tallied, Stern was ahead of Johnson by 31 votes. Stern has 8,399 votes, according to the report, and Johnson has 8,368. Nazarian still easily won the race and had 11,496 votes.

The 46th is a new district that represents Studio City, the Tolucans, Valley Village, Valley Glen, part of North Hollywood and other neighborhoods.

Stern is a high school teacher and has no political background. Despite only spending $2,000 in the race, he was able to edge out Johnson, who spent over $1 million, according to the Daily News, which also theorized that Stern benefitted from being the only Republican in the race.