Karen Bass overtakes Rick Caruso in primary vote for LA mayor

U.S. Representative Karen has surged to a lead in the ongoing vote tally from last week’s primary mayoral election in Los Angeles, carried by a wave of mail-in ballots that so far have tipped decidedly toward the progressive candidate.

Caruso initially led by 5 percentage points in the first city race to mail every voter a ballot, the Los Angeles Times reported. Now Bass leads in the ongoing count with 41 percent of the vote to Caruso’s 38 percent.

With many votes left to count – more than 365,820 countywide – the final tally won’t be known for days or weeks.

Bass appeared on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show With Jonathan Capehart” and predicted she’s on pace to win the primary, of which the top two candidates will square off in November.

“You would have thought $40 million compared to $3 million, that I would have been wiped out,” Bass said, noting how much Caruso spent on his campaign compared with her own.

“Angelenos want a mission-driven, battle-tested leader with the proven experience of pulling people together to confront the crises we are facing,” Anna Bahr, spokeswoman for the Bass campaign, said after the vote update.

Caruso spokesperson Peter Ragone said the campaign is “excited to accomplish our goal of making the runoff and giving voters a chance to clean up L.A.”

“Voters will have a clear choice when they go to the polls between a career politician who just last week went on record saying she can’t fix the homelessness crisis and a leader who can clean up L.A. and deal with homelessness, crime and corruption,” Ragone said.

Paul Mitchell, vice president of voter data firm Political Data, was cautious about predicting trends in the mayor’s race.

“We don’t know the composition of the outstanding ballots, how Democratic they are, or how Latino they are,” he told the Times.

In Northeast L.A., community activist Eunisses Hernandez led City Councilman Gil Cedillo by 292 votes, dealing a setback to his bid for a third and final term. Hernandez had 50.65 percent compared with Cedillo’s 49.35 percent.

For the Echo Park-to-Hollywood council seat, Hugo Soto-Martinez, an organizer with Unite Here Local 11, led Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, with 38.3 percent to 33.8 percent of the votes.

For the open council seat on the Westside, political aide Katy Young Yaroslavsky led attorney Sam Yebri, with 49.3 percent to 29.9 percent.

[Los Angeles Times] – Dana Bartholomew

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