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The count

Los Angeles County posted a new count at 9:24 this morning, and the 9th District is now the most important race left in the city. Nithya Raman’s lead over Karen Bass grew to 55,003 votes, and by our estimate Bass would need more than 60% of the votes left after taking 38.5% this morning. CD9 is the one city race that could still go either way.

CD9

Jose Ugarte leads Estuardo Mazariegos by 1,271 votes, 52.1% to 47.9%, down from 2,339 at 1:44 a.m. on election night. Mazariegos has won eight straight updates and took 58.5% of this morning’s count, the highest share in any of the four counts since election night. We estimate about 8,500 votes are left, so Mazariegos needs about 57% of them. This morning’s pace would put Mazariegos ahead by about 200 at the end, while the 55.4% from all four counts since election night would leave Ugarte ahead by about 350.

Ugarte’s biggest outside backers are the same three groups behind Tim Gaspar in CD3, and nearly all of the money backing Mazariegos comes from United Teachers Los Angeles and the organizing group ACCE. With 30,459 votes counted, it’s already CD9’s biggest council race since at least 2001. We’ve written about the words those groups paid to put in front of voters and how about 1% of the money in the runoff came from CD9.

CD3

A comeback for Gaspar looks highly unlikely. Barri Worth Girvan leads by 875 votes, 50.7% to 49.3%, after Gaspar led by as many as 933 on election night, and Girvan has won seven straight updates. Gaspar would need about 53% of the estimated 13,500 votes left but took 42.9% this morning and hasn’t topped 43% in any count since election night. Even at election night’s overall pace of 51%, Girvan would win by about 600.

Our coverage

We update our live results page after every count, and the county’s next one is due at 4 p.m. today. Our election map shows how every precinct voted through the 3:11 a.m. count on Wednesday, the newest precinct file the county has posted. Bass has surged after election night before… So has Raman explains how the county’s count order can move a race this late. Everything we’ve written about the races is at basin.la/elections.

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